ED's making passive past-lives irrelevant? [Archive] - Dungeons & Dragons Online Forums

Gremmlynn

03-01-2013, 06:04 PM

Been some discussion about with a few regular TR friends recently.

We're all completionists and all have multiple toons at 25 so we don't have any special axe to grind one way or another.

One thing that we do agree on though (and would love to hear from the masses on their disagreement with) is that the powerful (not over-powered) nature of ED's do make the past live passive achievements a bit irrelevant.

So our suggestion is simple:

1. Double the current benefits of the passive past-life feats. All of them.
2. Allow triple-completionists to select a new feat Ultimate Completionist at lvl 3+ in addition to the standard Completionist feat, to give a further +4 to all stats and skills across the board.

This shouldn't make anyone overpowered, apart from the standard recognition that they've done something just a little bit special. If you've been building gimps but dragging them through stuff to grind your way to ultimate completionist then an extra +whatever isn't going to make you less gimp, so extra stats won't make you uber.

It does however reflect the fact that your perfect soul has been reincarnated through the maximum number of beneficial past-lives and gives you a little bit of an extra pat on the back for doing so. Someone suggested adding double wings to your character name to differentiate you from the TR gimp masses, you can decide for yourself if this is a good or bad idea.

Nothing in the game should be geared to suit these builds of course. All game balance should remain as-is. But if you've dedicated the time and energy to achieve this status then you will automatically find things a little bit easier there-after.

Using a stone of experience should prevent you from gaining a past life feat of course, to make sure that those who earn it, earn it without skipping from 8 to 18 like big girls.Um, why? It seems to me all that TRing did what it was supposed to do, keep those with nothing better to do than grind busy while the devs figured out something new to call end game.

So, why do you want a cookie?

A jesters cap would be more in order if you ask me.

RobbinB

03-01-2013, 06:08 PM

I fully don't support this idea.

The past lives should be about a pat on the back, the benefits should not be so great to make them almost mandatory to having a functional character.

For melee, this is exactly the situation. A little extra hp, up to +15% healing amp, up to +3 combat tactics, I guess you could say those are fair rewards for time spent, but still allow individuals without the past lives to play in the same sandbox.

The same is not true for casters. Three wizard past-lives is a huge boost for spell pen, so much so that a first lifer really can't compete. Doubling such a benefit would certainly make those past-lives mandatory as Turbine adjusted the spell resistance of mobs in newer content to reflect the maximum achievable.

I've said it before, but I think Turbine botched the resurrection system completely. What we needed at endgame was a way to completely change our characters class, feats, etc... when we got bored without having to completely re-roll and re-level. Let's face it, there was (and still is) a significant "casual" player base that views re-leveling as a complete chore. The basis of resurrection should be a regular resurrection that lets you redo your character completely but keep everything you currently have. The true resurrection, while a neat idea, should have been the "hardcore" gamers option only, providing a very marginal benefit that is nice but really isn't needed.

evilgijoe

03-01-2013, 06:11 PM

since past lives stack with ED's they are still pretty relevant.primarily on casters though. for example one wizard past life plus the feat can make up for a 18 wiz 2 ro split.past life gives you the missing 2 spell pen and active past life makes up for the capstone. i do agree that eg barbarian and pally past lives could use a bit of a bump,say 15 hp instead of 10 and 8% heal amp for pally.

Maxallu

03-01-2013, 06:17 PM

Is this thread about EDs or recognizing 3x completionists?

Btw, I do support the idea if gold wings for completionists. That would be cool.

Matuse

03-01-2013, 06:17 PM

If you don't like the benefits of a past life, don't TR through that life.

Pretty simple.

Lyria

03-01-2013, 06:22 PM

So our suggestion is simple:

1. Double the current benefits of the passive past-life feats. All of them.
2. Allow triple-completionists to select a new feat Ultimate Completionist at lvl 3+ in addition to the standard Completionist feat, to give a further +4 to all stats and skills across the board.

This shouldn't make anyone overpowered, apart from the standard recognition that they've done something just a little bit special. If you've been building gimps but dragging them through stuff to grind your way to ultimate completionist then an extra +whatever isn't going to make you less gimp, so extra stats won't make you uber.

So you don't think that +6 to all stats and skills would be a bit over the top? Seriously? And doubling all the benefits of TRing? Wouldn't that just force Turbine to have to bump up mobs even further, due to the multi-TR players complaining that "epic elite is too damned easy!" at that point?

Why should you get extra recognition beyond being able to get the completionist feat? So you want them to retroactively give you a bunch of extra stuff, because you want to feel even more special?

It does however reflect the fact that your perfect soul has been reincarnated through the maximum number of beneficial past-lives and gives you a little bit of an extra pat on the back for doing so. Someone suggested adding double wings to your character name to differentiate you from the TR gimp masses, you can decide for yourself if this is a good or bad idea.

"The TR gimp masses", huh? Yep, definitely the "I want to be a special snowflake, unlike the rest of you losers". Nice attitude.

Nothing in the game should be geared to suit these builds of course. All game balance should remain as-is. But if you've dedicated the time and energy to achieve this status then you will automatically find things a little bit easier there-after.

Using a stone of experience should prevent you from gaining a past life feat of course, to make sure that those who earn it, earn it without skipping from 8 to 18 like big girls.

Riiiiight. Make the game even easier for you, so you can smirk knowingly at each other as your little group of mega-characters plows through everything, and then derides people who can't, eh?

I'm surprised you're not asking for it to "only be available to US, and nobody else" on top of it.

Wulverine

03-01-2013, 06:24 PM

Let's wait and see what they have in store for Epic TR'ing first.

bartharok

03-01-2013, 06:33 PM

Umm... theres a lot else than endgame in this game. If you TR, the benefits of the passive past life feats are a nice bonus. Of course, if you play at cap, your EDs will overshadow the benefits of the past lives, but until you hit 20 they are nice. If their power was doubled as was suggested, they would unbalance the game at lower levels. So, no, i dont think they should be tampered with.

pHo3nix

03-01-2013, 06:35 PM

So you don't think that +6 to all stats and skills would be a bit over the top? Seriously? And doubling all the benefits of TRing? Wouldn't that just force Turbine to have to bump up mobs even further, due to the multi-TR players complaining that "epic elite is too damned easy!" at that point?

Come on, his suggestion make sense, especially the part when he says to not grant the pl feats to someone who uses a stone of xp to bypass half of the lvls.

How many people are triple completionist doing lives legit? 10 per server? Not much more.

Great Idea OP, i'm still slowly advancing on my way to (normal) completionist, but i think that people that run 3x of every life without buying the past lives on the store should be awarded something to make them different from the others :)

shadereaper33

03-01-2013, 06:42 PM

So, now that you have done all the work, you don't the rewards for that work is worth it relative to the rewards available for a completely different system, and therefore you want to be given more super-special rewards for the work you have already done? How many ways is it possible to say "NO"? That aside, giving characters a stacking +6 to all stats, +3 to all saves, +3 attack, +3 damage, +9! to all skills, +25/50 hp, and +3/6 AC, pending individual build choices, would be incredibly game breaking and would put those players on a level of relative power so far above the ones that don't, that content simply would not be able to challenge them similarly.

If content were made to challenge those without the new uber completionist, then those with it would find the content laughably easy, and either start screaming for "MOAR CHALLENGE!!!!" or just farm it into the ground and flood the economy with the most powerful gear, thus ruining it even more. On the other hand, if the content were made to be challenging for people with this new feat, it would become almost impossible for the majority of the people without it, thus putting us back to the time of the original epic content, where the highest tier of content was only suited for ~1% of the player base.

Both of the options are equally bad, which is why Turbine has been making recent changes to actually remove some of the stacking power our characters can attain. And now you actually ask them to add in a source of stacking power to the game that is more powerful that any of the sources they have recently removed, give it to you and your friends effectively free, and you think this is all fine and dandy? Really?

/Not signed in every way imaginable.

Qhualor

03-01-2013, 06:44 PM

before too much longer, completionist will be about as grindy as a 3rd life character making his way to 20. xp pots getting a bigger boost now, Ottos Box and I wouldn't doubt that there will be similar versions down the road, xp tomes, LR out the levels you don't want without actually playing that particular class and word of possibly an extra 10% xp for TRs. +4 to stats and skills would be easy enough to get if someone was willing to spend a little money or even in game trade.

with characters starting at level 15 in FR in the next expansion and level cap increasing, to go the distance without spending the TP or in game tradeables would seem too much for some people. grinding for past lives and than grinding for EDs and level 25 (soon 28) would be very time consuming and a lot of time needed to invest in it. sounds like too much work for little gain, to me.

Chai

03-01-2013, 06:46 PM

The benefits stack with EDs so they are not irrelevant. Some players enjoy the min maxing aspect and will farm until their eyeballs bleed for benefits such as those granted by past lives, like +3 to tactics and such.

Lyria

03-01-2013, 06:47 PM

Come on, his suggestion make sense, especially the part when he says to not grant the pl feats to someone who uses a stone of xp to bypass half of the lvls.

How does granting people massive extra benefits "make sense?" They already get a bunch of benefits for having 3x every life. Now he wants to double or even triple those benefits?

How many people are triple completionist doing lives legit? 10 per server? Not much more.

So why should that handful of people be given enormous benefits? If they want shiny gold wings next to their name to say "Hey, look, we're special" that's fine. Cosmetic bonus. But to give them massive game-affecting advatnages? Hell no.

FengXian

03-01-2013, 06:47 PM

If you don't like the benefits of a past life, don't TR through that life.

Pretty simple.

Game balance has changed. Maybe when he tr'd it made more sense to do so, and now PLs underpowered compared to the way less grindy destinies. PLs could use a slight buff, or EDs could use a slight nerf, or neither and let's wait for epic completionist.

Yeah I agree about the "TR gimp masses", it's nothing about feeling special, it's a fact. There are heroes, if not legends, who don't have a clue. In the past wings were rare because leveling a tr was harder, and generally 2nd+ lifers were also experienced players. Now wings mean nothing experience-wise :)

P.S.: imho OP's idea is not completely wrong. Double is too much esp if retroactive, but I think that effort-benefit should be proportional. Right now we don't have that: EDs take much less effort and give much more benefit compared to PLs. I can undestand why 3x completionists think it's unfair, I think it's the same reason 3x caster PL casters complain about 1st life shiradi sorcs. And everyone supports the multi tr casters in that case afaik^^

Ryiah

03-01-2013, 06:49 PM

The past lives should be about a pat on the back, the benefits should not be so great to make them almost mandatory to having a functional character.

They can easily be both. Epic Elite should be for those who are well geared, well built, and well played. The remaining difficulties can cover those who either are not quite there yet or don't have any real interest in being there. I like the way the Epic Gianthold gear was made with the Epic Elite only having minor differences from the Epic Hard gear and feel gear in general should be made this way.

I've said it before, but I think Turbine botched the resurrection system completely.

Quickly glancing over Glin's statements regarding the expansion leaves me with the feeling they may allow TRs to start at level 15 with the Iconic Heroes addition along with new characters. It would certainly be a nice change of pace to avoid having to run the early Eberron content every life.

Gremmlynn

03-01-2013, 06:52 PM

Yeah I agree about the "TR gimp masses", it's nothing about feeling special, it's a fact. There are heroes, if not legends, who don't have a clue. In the past wings were rare because leveling a tr was harder, and generally 2nd+ lifers were also experienced players. Now wings mean nothing experience-wise :)They never did. Just means someone put in the time to grind and regrind the same content over and over. Don't even have to be very good at it, just good enough to complete.

zarthak

03-01-2013, 07:02 PM

i love TRing, it gives you more stat points at creation, more goodies that are hard to get (+3 damage from monk PL's/ +3 tatical DC from fighter/ more saves on traps from rogue PL's etc etc.

Enoach

03-01-2013, 07:02 PM

The problem with excluding "Stoned" characters is your asking Turbine to punish people that purchased something from them that they put on the market.

That would be like a Store telling shoppers because you use one of our Store Coupons in the past you can't benefit from our Sale today...

Companies don't do things like that to their customers, especially ones that want to keep them.

While I will agree that some of the Past Life Feats are not as desirable as others and maybe some of them could be reviewed.

The HP for Barbarian PL would come out to +75 HP currently and with the proposed Cap Increase would be +84 HP. That would practically eliminate the need to take toughness.

The Spell Point PL would be 3x Sorcerer + 3x FvS would come out to 750 Additional Spell points.

Spell Penetration PL would be 3x Wizard + 3x FvS would come out to +18 Spell Penetration

I can see "trading" a life for a minor boost (with a cap) but this proposal would break the system all together.

FengXian

03-01-2013, 07:05 PM

They never did. Just means someone put in the time to grind and regrind the same content over and over. Don't even have to be very good at it, just good enough to complete.

I disagree. If you're not good it will take you ages, and you'll eventually give up. Need some perseverance actually... I even had a few guildies back in the day, all great end game players, complaining about how long it took to tr. TBH I think the completionist feat was a joke back then, compared to how long it took to get it...now it's much easier to level and I feel for the people who got completionist before BB/xp tomes/more content...

Don't underestimate the importance of time. Time is the most common price we pay for this game alongside with money. Time is prolly even more rewarding than money actually, since you can't buy a SoS shard or a PL (although it's changed quite a bit with timer bypasses and xp stones). So 15ish weeks of gameplay (completionist if you're pretty fast actually) should at least come close to one or two days (maxed EDs) imho, let alone triple completionist...even knowing that PLs aren't supposed to be one of the main sources of a toon's power.

bartharok

03-01-2013, 07:06 PM

FengXian

03-01-2013, 07:10 PM

Piking takes no time at all.

That's right, leveling EDs by piking HoRB virtually takes no time, thanks for supporting my point.

Matuse

03-01-2013, 07:27 PM

In the past wings were rare

This is only true if you consider "the past" to include the time when True Resurrection did not exist in the game.

On THE DAY that TRing was available, the place was flooded with little wingy people, and many of them were back to level 20 within 2 weeks.

RobbinB

03-01-2013, 07:55 PM

They can easily be both. Epic Elite should be for those who are well geared, well built, and well played. The remaining difficulties can cover those who either are not quite there yet or don't have any real interest in being there. I like the way the Epic Gianthold gear was made with the Epic Elite only having minor differences from the Epic Hard gear and feel gear in general should be made this way.

I'm unsure whether you are supporting increased rewards for completionist or against.

Farming past-lives till your eyeballs bleed has nothing to do with gear layouts, builds, or play-skill. Its just how much time your willing to spend being a hamster on the wheel. Just as epic elite gear is a minor increase over epic hard, past lives too should be minor increases. As I and others have already pointed out, many of the benefits are already not minor, doubling them would make them dramatic.

Should I be able to tackle Epic Elite if I'm a clueless noob with 2 left feet who just started playing the game? Maybe not. But I'm a 10-15 hour a week moderate gamer with good game knowledge and pretty good gear. But the idea of multiple tr's just isn't exciting for me. This shouldn't exclude me from Epic Elites (and currently doesn't, although a couple of my characters like my caster are really hurting without the past-lives). I'd hate to see that change because past lives add too much in the way of power to a character.

FengXian

03-01-2013, 07:56 PM

This is only true if you consider "the past" to include the time when True Resurrection did not exist in the game.

On THE DAY that TRing was available, the place was flooded with little wingy people, and many of them were back to level 20 within 2 weeks.

Ehh..."compared to today", of course...

eonfreon

03-01-2013, 07:57 PM

FengXian

03-01-2013, 08:35 PM

You TRed because it was part of the game. You played the game and got the benefits. TRing primarily existed to satisfy the min-max mindset and keep them grinding the game over and over. Before it was just rerolling or starting new characters while waiting for Turbine to create new content.

What else were you going to do while waiting for new content? You knew the benefits and you've enjoyed those benefits. There is no need to give you more benefits for something you've already done, IMO.

I understand your point. However old items are getting upgraded to help them keep up with power creep. I'm thinking either old epic or raid items, both with an option to quickly upgrade your already acquired item.

So why shouldn't PLs get a relatively quick upgrade option to help them keep up with the power creep?

I don't think people with many PLs should be treated as "mindless automatons" that can only grind because they don't have a life, because they are crazy min-maxers who'd have nothing to do but re-run the game 30 times. They can have more time, they can be more efficient than you in leveling, or both.

Acquiring PLs to me is like acquiring gear. Both are tools to make your toon stronger. The difference is that PLs are passive, basically slot-free since they require no feat, no equipment slot etc...so they can't be too powerful. Some, however, are underwhelming.

-Barb: passive 10 hp count a lot less than they used to. 15 hp wouldn't be too much but I know people still give a lot of value even to those "up to 30" so nvm. Active is good since it counts as a toughness.
-Bard: both are decent I suppose, although +1 to DC is subject to power creep too (and not stackable, and costs a feat...)
-Cleric: passive might get better when and if Turn Undead is improved. Active is a joke.
-Fighter: both are decent, nothing huge but no real need to buff either.
-Paladin: both are very nice. Like for the cleric, if the heal skill ever gets to count, that +2 heal might be of some us maybe...
-Ranger: passive is nice, active is a joke. Can have low ML +5 nat. armor items, can slot it, can drink a vendor-buyable pot for +3...lame, lame active PL.
-Rogue: I suppose both are decent? up to +6 saves vs traps and +3 sneak damage passive seems ok, active too prolly...can it be extended?
-Sorc: passive is ok, as always, numerical values (especially SP) are subject to power creep, but still good. Active is again a joke, at least now it can qualify you for AA w/o a blue bar class level...otherwise useless.
-Wizard; passive is nice, +4 from epic SP made it a bit less useful but still good. Active too, clickie is nice for shiradi's...
-Monk: +1 to damage, nice and very power creep'd now but w/e. Active can prolly find some use on high reflex evasionless builds, not sure how many monks are taking it for the increased dice but I guess it's ok.
-FvS: passive is ok, active is useless.
-Arti: passive is nice, active doesn't look good at all but I might be wrong
-Druid: passive might become good if there's a pet/summon overhaul, now looks meh. Active doesn't seem to be worth a feat.

As you can see many PLs are either waiting/hoping for a game mechanic overhaul, or need to be imporved themselves. Especially the active ones, since they are not "free" at all since you need to use a precious feat slot. Most of them are subject to power creep. While the DC and spell pen ones are still useful, the SP and damage ones lost some of their power. They all just don't scale.
Some of the active ones are complete garbage that needs to be reworked asap.

--------------------------------------------------

I think a good solution would be increasing the passive PL stackability to 5. This way no retroactiveness, but still a buff to help keep up with power creep.

I also think Completionist shouldn't require a feat slot^^

Lyria

03-01-2013, 08:52 PM

I think a good solution would be increasing the passive PL stackability to 5. This way no retroactiveness, but still a buff to help keep up with power creep.

The problem is that would ESCALATE power-creep. Adding more power isn't a way to help out power-creep, it's just adding more on top of what's already there.

So 6 more spell pen, 4 more DCs on spells, 10% more heal amp, etc isn't going to help out the power creep in the slightest. It's going to require that mobs be tweaked to keep up with it, creating an even larger line between "max TRs" and "non-TRs". There are already multi-TR people complaining that epic elite is "way too easy". Adding more power on top of what they have now isn't going to do anything to alleviate that. It'll just make it worse.

TR bonuses should ALWAYS be fairly minor. Because they're passive, and always there. If you start giving them more and more power, it means they start becoming less "optional" and more "mandatory".

TRing should never, EVER be mandatory.

And completionist should definitely require a feat slot. +2 to all skills/stats is way too good to be a free passive.

HungarianRhapsody

03-01-2013, 08:59 PM

Past lives stack with EDs.

Anything that stacks is good.

FengXian

03-01-2013, 09:03 PM

The problem is that would ESCALATE power-creep. Adding more power isn't a way to help out power-creep, it's just adding more on top of what's already there.

So 6 more spell pen, 4 more DCs on spells, 10% more heal amp, etc isn't going to help out the power creep in the slightest. It's going to require that mobs be tweaked to keep up with it, creating an even larger line between "max TRs" and "non-TRs". There are already multi-TR people complaining that epic elite is "way too easy". Adding more power on top of what they have now isn't going to do anything to alleviate that. It'll just make it worse.

TR bonuses should ALWAYS be fairly minor. Because they're passive, and always there. If you start giving them more and more power, it means they start becoming less "optional" and more "mandatory".

TRing should never, EVER be mandatory.

And completionist should definitely require a feat slot. +2 to all skills/stats is way too good to be a free passive.

The thing is...if we want to "fix" power creep, then EDs should be nerfed.

Otherwise, PLs deserve a chance to at least keep up with the power creep. I see no escalation since right now the DCs required are too high, healing amp is definitely not the end of the world and spell pen can already be either very high for drow or average for everything else.

Besides, you make it sound like all those bonuses will go on every toon, while having 5x FVS, 5x Wizard, 5x Sorc, 5x Cleric (and 5x pally?) casters wouldn't really be nearly as common compared to the amount of toons with EDs. 1% maybe? Prolly even less.

Increasing the stacking of passive PLs to 5 would only help those who already have 3x, it's nothing huge. It's not like we're giving +6 spell pen (4 PLs), +4 conj/evoc DC (4 PLs), +10%HA (2 PLs for a total of 10!) to everyone. With the level cap increased to 28 and god knows what other ED goodies it will be hardly noticeable.

Silverleafeon

03-01-2013, 09:15 PM

How many uber completionists?

I count two:

Star and Cloey

zarthak

03-01-2013, 09:18 PM

How many uber completionists?

I count two:

Star and Cloey

theres one more :Kazarach

fco-karatekid

03-01-2013, 09:42 PM

Doubling is wayyy too much and the second idea is fraught with problems others have already mentioned in this thread.

TR was a way to double (and more) the playable content for the player base without having to double the NEW content created. It made folks run content 2, 3, 4, plus times by giving them a decent motive to do so.

It was a shrewd move, but many in the player base assume it is some sort of bonus or power. It really isn't.

As was also said above, let's see what they mean by Epic TR.

eonfreon

03-01-2013, 09:51 PM

Kambuk

03-01-2013, 09:58 PM

How about an additional benefit at lvl 20 and another at 25?
Rather than further trivialize sub 20 content because of post lvl 20 power?

Kambuk

Durten

03-01-2013, 10:09 PM

Yes EDs do make past lives less relevant. The OPs suggestions is a bit over the top. Simply make the completionist PASSIVE.

It's a nod to completionists as they will save a feat, but doesn't introduce power creep. 1 extra feat is not going unbalance the game.

They should introduce this before Epic EDs to get people motivated to Heroic TR before the Epic option comes in. They obviously make money fromTRs (Xp pots, hearts, stones, and anything else that is bought to facilitate the leveling) so this should goose the TR revenue a bit and Mae up for the Heroic TR revenue they lose to Epic TR.

Lyria

03-01-2013, 10:12 PM

The thing is...if we want to "fix" power creep, then EDs should be nerfed.

Otherwise, PLs deserve a chance to at least keep up with the power creep. I see no escalation since right now the DCs required are too high, healing amp is definitely not the end of the world and spell pen can already be either very high for drow or average for everything else.

Here's the problem with your argument, however. You're arguing as if you have to have EITHER PLs or EDs, not both. You can have both PLs and EDs, which means there's no reason that PL bonuses should "compete" with EDs.

Besides, you make it sound like all those bonuses will go on every toon, while having 5x FVS, 5x Wizard, 5x Sorc, 5x Cleric (and 5x pally?) casters wouldn't really be nearly as common compared to the amount of toons with EDs. 1% maybe? Prolly even less.

Of course they won't be as common. However, again, you can have those bonuses ON TOP OF ED bonuses. So the ones who do will just start getting MORE powerful, and will trivialize the content that much faster, unless it's ramped up to meet their new power -- which means the people who DON'T do multiple TRs will fall further behind, making TRing more and more required instead of the option it is now.

Increasing the stacking of passive PLs to 5 would only help those who already have 3x, it's nothing huge. It's not like we're giving +6 spell pen (4 PLs), +4 conj/evoc DC (4 PLs), +10%HA (2 PLs for a total of 10!) to everyone. With the level cap increased to 28 and god knows what other ED goodies it will be hardly noticeable.

Considering we don't know what those "other ED goodies" entail, or even if they'll exist, you can't say that for certain.

So why again should PL benefits be increased? The people who want them buffed up are the ones who would rush out to get them anyway. So it's not as though they're arguing for it for "The good of the game". They're arguing for it for pure self-interest.

Menace13

03-01-2013, 10:17 PM

I do like the idea of something to show completionists from just TR's. Like a special cloak that could be seen on character, or armor, that are both highly visible and functional. They would have augment slots, btc-obv-, and would get a specific set of abilities decided by the player upon selection.

Why triple completionist? Why not quadruple? Or "merely' double?

Why not Epic Destiny capped completionist?

eonfreon

03-01-2013, 10:20 PM

Come on, his suggestion make sense, especially the part when he says to not grant the pl feats to someone who uses a stone of xp to bypass half of the lvls.

How many people are triple completionist doing lives legit? 10 per server? Not much more.

Great Idea OP, i'm still slowly advancing on my way to (normal) completionist, but i think that people that run 3x of every life without buying the past lives on the store should be awarded something to make them different from the others :)

If you're going with that stipulation, then anyone who used any XP pots should also be excluded from the "uber-completionist" list as well, shouldn't they? That's no more "legit" is it?

Silverleafeon

03-02-2013, 01:34 AM

theres one more :Kazarach

ty

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 01:36 AM

I disagree. If you're not good it will take you ages, and you'll eventually give up. Need some perseverance actually... I even had a few guildies back in the day, all great end game players, complaining about how long it took to tr. TBH I think the completionist feat was a joke back then, compared to how long it took to get it...now it's much easier to level and I feel for the people who got completionist before BB/xp tomes/more content...

Don't underestimate the importance of time. Time is the most common price we pay for this game alongside with money. Time is prolly even more rewarding than money actually, since you can't buy a SoS shard or a PL (although it's changed quite a bit with timer bypasses and xp stones). So 15ish weeks of gameplay (completionist if you're pretty fast actually) should at least come close to one or two days (maxed EDs) imho, let alone triple completionist...even knowing that PLs aren't supposed to be one of the main sources of a toon's power.Yes, it is just a matter of time. The thing is, the time isn't that important as there is no deadline. It's just time spent on a hobby, not something that needs to get done...ever.

What do you consider ages? Took me almost 2 years to get the first character to cap. I didn't give up on it as getting to cap wasn't important and I was enjoying the game. Those great end game players probably should have stuck to end game if TRing was something that they complained about doing it seems.

15 weeks for completionist, how about however long it takes till it happens or doesn't. An SoS shard? If it drops it drops.

I just don't understand the concept of doing something one doesn't like and then asking to be rewarded for it. If it's something they enjoy, it is it's own reward. If not, they are just fools for doing it if they don't feel what it is advertised as giving is worth the trouble.

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 01:48 AM

I understand your point. However old items are getting upgraded to help them keep up with power creep. I'm thinking either old epic or raid items, both with an option to quickly upgrade your already acquired item.

So why shouldn't PLs get a relatively quick upgrade option to help them keep up with the power creep?

I don't think people with many PLs should be treated as "mindless automatons" that can only grind because they don't have a life, because they are crazy min-maxers who'd have nothing to do but re-run the game 30 times. They can have more time, they can be more efficient than you in leveling, or both.

Acquiring PLs to me is like acquiring gear. Both are tools to make your toon stronger. The difference is that PLs are passive, basically slot-free since they require no feat, no equipment slot etc...so they can't be too powerful. Some, however, are underwhelming.

-Barb: passive 10 hp count a lot less than they used to. 15 hp wouldn't be too much but I know people still give a lot of value even to those "up to 30" so nvm. Active is good since it counts as a toughness.
-Bard: both are decent I suppose, although +1 to DC is subject to power creep too (and not stackable, and costs a feat...)
-Cleric: passive might get better when and if Turn Undead is improved. Active is a joke.
-Fighter: both are decent, nothing huge but no real need to buff either.
-Paladin: both are very nice. Like for the cleric, if the heal skill ever gets to count, that +2 heal might be of some us maybe...
-Ranger: passive is nice, active is a joke. Can have low ML +5 nat. armor items, can slot it, can drink a vendor-buyable pot for +3...lame, lame active PL.
-Rogue: I suppose both are decent? up to +6 saves vs traps and +3 sneak damage passive seems ok, active too prolly...can it be extended?
-Sorc: passive is ok, as always, numerical values (especially SP) are subject to power creep, but still good. Active is again a joke, at least now it can qualify you for AA w/o a blue bar class level...otherwise useless.
-Wizard; passive is nice, +4 from epic SP made it a bit less useful but still good. Active too, clickie is nice for shiradi's...
-Monk: +1 to damage, nice and very power creep'd now but w/e. Active can prolly find some use on high reflex evasionless builds, not sure how many monks are taking it for the increased dice but I guess it's ok.
-FvS: passive is ok, active is useless.
-Arti: passive is nice, active doesn't look good at all but I might be wrong
-Druid: passive might become good if there's a pet/summon overhaul, now looks meh. Active doesn't seem to be worth a feat.

As you can see many PLs are either waiting/hoping for a game mechanic overhaul, or need to be imporved themselves. Especially the active ones, since they are not "free" at all since you need to use a precious feat slot. Most of them are subject to power creep. While the DC and spell pen ones are still useful, the SP and damage ones lost some of their power. They all just don't scale.
Some of the active ones are complete garbage that needs to be reworked asap.

--------------------------------------------------

I think a good solution would be increasing the passive PL stackability to 5. This way no retroactiveness, but still a buff to help keep up with power creep.

I also think Completionist shouldn't require a feat slot^^You don't seem to understand that EDs made PLs redundant for a reason. Those PLs were there to keep the content devourers busy till Turbine could catch up and EDs were made so the rest of the players could jump right in. Balancing end game around all that grind would just cost the game a big chunk of player base that simply would leave before doing all that simply to play a video game.

None of them need to be reworked as they all give what they were advertised to give and the game no longer needs them to keep players busy.

Ryiah

03-02-2013, 02:27 AM

Yes EDs do make past lives less relevant. The OPs suggestions is a bit over the top. Simply make the completionist PASSIVE.

The problem is that the past life benefits vary by a good deal. The Wizard past life is very nice on a caster, but the Fighter one is pretty pathetic for a melee. I would be happy with just getting the feat to be passive, but I would also like to see them glance over the past life feats to see if anything could be changed if not improved to bring it more inline with the others.

You don't seem to understand that EDs made PLs redundant for a reason.

Past lives are not redundant. At least not the Wizard one as it gives a fairly decent boost for casters. My first life Wizard has all three feats, I believe the Enhancements for spell penetration, a decent item, and twists to boost it even further. Last I checked my spells still had some issues bypassing spell penetration on Epic Elite. At least for the more brutal ones. With the level cap going to 28, Turbine will either have to implement more sources or raise the existing ones if they wish to keep past lives as unnecessary.

bruener

03-02-2013, 02:41 AM

I also think Completionist shouldn't require a feat slot^^

This seems like a good idea that i could get behind and I will NEVER grind out a completionist.

Yokido

03-02-2013, 02:48 AM

The solution is simple, really, just add in racial past-lives.. Since races are getting their very own prestiges with the enhancement pass, it would make sense that they act much like a class does.

Offer the racial bonus to all TR'ers, a different bonus for each race, you only get the bonus of the race you TR'ed from if you're that same one still [That way, you don't have people doing each and every race, but they enjoy being the one they've already played and have some justification].. The possibilities for how this can be worked/twisted are endless.

Heck you could even put the past racial TR feat as a requirement for certain racial enhancements, that'd DEFINITELY add some spice into the mix.

Silverleafeon

03-02-2013, 02:51 AM

I also think Completionist shouldn't require a feat slot^^

Aye, please indeed!

.

Silverleafeon

03-02-2013, 02:52 AM

Silverleafeon

03-02-2013, 02:56 AM

If you're going with that stipulation, then anyone who used any XP pots should also be excluded from the "uber-completionist" list as well, shouldn't they? That's no more "legit" is it?

Aye if you figure it out, a Otto's Box without bonuses is about the same as using a 50% xp pot,
which they now sell in the ddo store.

Deadlock

03-02-2013, 02:59 AM

Um, why? It seems to me all that TRing did what it was supposed to do, keep those with nothing better to do than grind busy while the devs figured out something new to call end game.

So, why do you want a cookie?

A jesters cap would be more in order if you ask me.

Nothing better to do than play the game you mean?

Nothing better to do than TR and then level up again, helping others gain some XP in their pugs and helping to show newbies a few tricks that they've picked up along the way?

Deadlock

03-02-2013, 03:02 AM

Is this thread about EDs or recognizing 3x completionists?

Btw, I do support the idea if gold wings for completionists. That would be cool.

It's about the relatively weak passive past-life achievments that you gain when you TR.

They're nice and I'm not saying we should remove them. But now that we have ED's, it's marginalised the benefits of the past-life feats to the point they've become pretty much irrelevant (although +9 Spell Pen is still nice).

SilkofDrasnia

03-02-2013, 03:19 AM

Been some discussion about with a few regular TR friends recently.

We're all completionists and all have multiple toons at 25 so we don't have any special axe to grind one way or another.

One thing that we do agree on though (and would love to hear from the masses on their disagreement with) is that the powerful (not over-powered) nature of ED's do make the past live passive achievements a bit irrelevant.

So our suggestion is simple:

1. Double the current benefits of the passive past-life feats. All of them.
2. Allow triple-completionists to select a new feat Ultimate Completionist at lvl 3+ in addition to the standard Completionist feat, to give a further +4 to all stats and skills across the board.

This shouldn't make anyone overpowered, apart from the standard recognition that they've done something just a little bit special. If you've been building gimps but dragging them through stuff to grind your way to ultimate completionist then an extra +whatever isn't going to make you less gimp, so extra stats won't make you uber.

It does however reflect the fact that your perfect soul has been reincarnated through the maximum number of beneficial past-lives and gives you a little bit of an extra pat on the back for doing so. Someone suggested adding double wings to your character name to differentiate you from the TR gimp masses, you can decide for yourself if this is a good or bad idea.

Nothing in the game should be geared to suit these builds of course. All game balance should remain as-is. But if you've dedicated the time and energy to achieve this status then you will automatically find things a little bit easier there-after.

No, there is enough peeps crying "easy button" when they are running toons like this, imagine the outcry of content is too easy bla bla this would start, and they would be right this time.

More seriously though completionist is suppose to be a 1 to 20 thing and it still is. It's still very useful when going 1 to 20, anyone that says it's not isn't being honest especially when you factor in the tomes.

The ED's are doing what they are suppose to be doing and that is equalizing things a little, you need to keep in mind that the key word is EPIC destinies, as such it should make past lives a bit irrelevant.

Past lives are for when you are running content 1 to 20 and ED are for 20 to 25, at least that's how I feel about it. I mean come on lol another +4 across the board, just how bad do we want to rape our way through elite when running at level 1 to 20 content?

Deadlock

03-02-2013, 03:22 AM

If you don't like the benefits of a past life, don't TR through that life.

Pretty simple.

I've enjoyed every life that I've done. Some more than others depending on what I was trying to do that life. I spend as long at end-game as I can put up with, then get bored with it and TR.

I'm not knocking the TR mechanism itself, I think it's a genius idea and is definitely part of what's kept me playing.

All I'm saying is that when you look at what you get for 3 of some of the past-lives it's fairly weak.

A few people have said that changes to the past live will lead to power creep, but I completely disagree with that. Like I said in the OP, quest mechanics shouldn't be changed to cater for people for multiple past lives. The fact that you already need multiple past lives to get through mob's spell resistance is just wrong and should be fixed.

The posts on the forums claiming that Epic Elite everything is too easy I tend to ignore. They're definitely not representative of the vast majority of the player base.

Deamus

03-02-2013, 03:26 AM

Simply no to all changes to past lives and completionists . Definitely not signed.

eonfreon

03-02-2013, 03:26 AM

It's about the relatively weak passive past-life achievments that you gain when you TR.

They're nice and I'm not saying we should remove them. But now that we have ED's, it's marginalised the benefits of the past-life feats to the point they've become pretty much irrelevant (although +9 Spell Pen is still nice).

The only reason it's "marginalized" is because the game is moving on a bit. At the time those we did TR enjoyed the fruits of that labor. They played with "increased power" that those who did not TR could not gain.

TRing was a good way at the time of giving a bonus to keep players playing, as you've touched upon. Before that we just re-rolled or started new players. If you're entitled to "upgraded power" because you did a TR, then shouldn't I have been granted "upgraded power" simply because of the fact that I started playing before you? By your logic, TRing "marginalized" my playtime because I couldn't gain more power when I reached cap and with no TR system in place, I was forced to re-roll and twink out my characters if I wanted to continue. I didn't get +2 to my stats every time I re-rolled a character. Thus TRs "marginalized" my previous efforts, if you want to extend that logic.

Certainly ask for some reasonable little upgrades. Some of the PL feats could use some work. But please, get away from the idea that you deserve an upgrade just because you played the content over and over. So did I. Long before you were ever TRing. How come I wasn't given an upgrade to my abilities when TRs came into existence. I'd certainly re-run the content enought o have TRed several characters.

You've already reaped whatever benefits existed. You were more powerful than someone who hadn't TRed. Turbine has something new in the works. An Epic TR. Wait to see what that is first. You may already have a leg up on everyone else with your "completionist" or "multi-TRs" from everyone else.

And in the time being, accept what TRing was. A stop-gap measure to keep players interested in re-running the content over and over. Most games are slowly moving away from that constant grind. I think Turbine looked at the real numbers and realized that the TRing and Old Epic endgames were not very satisfactory to the majority. That's why they gave more and more xp boosts and such, because they realized that the majority of players don't want to re-do everything again and again. Especially not start anew again and again at least.

I don't think they can sustain the game with that level of grinding. That's just my opinion but I really don't think they'll be able to sell that idea too much longer. Hence why they gave much greater power at endgame now. To give more power to TRs, who've already enjoyed a greater level of power at one time, would then make it necessary to TR because they would have to account for it at some level. I don't think their model could sustain the old idea of TR multiple times to be ready to do Epics. It would alienate too many people. Too many people would simply quit when they saw the grinding aspect of it, IMO.

And btw, if you drank a single XP pot then you are no more deserving of "upgraded" power than the "Stone of XP" people you say don't deserve it.

eonfreon

03-02-2013, 03:36 AM

A few people have said that changes to the past live will lead to power creep, but I completely disagree with that. Like I said in the OP, quest mechanics shouldn't be changed to cater for people for multiple past lives. The fact that you already need multiple past lives to get through mob's spell resistance is just wrong and should be fixed.

How would you propose fixing the need for multiple past lives to get through spell resistance if you want to double the benefits of past lives?

If the benefits of doing Past Lives is already greater then someone who hasn't done it, how can you double the benefit and keep it fair?

It either becomes trivial for someone with past lives or it becomes near impossible for someone without past lives.

Or a new difficulty setting has to be created which takes past lives into account and those without those past lives just have to struggle through or just forget about doing it. We can call it Epics of Old.

Deadlock

03-02-2013, 03:54 AM

I understand your point. However old items are getting upgraded to help them keep up with power creep. I'm thinking either old epic or raid items, both with an option to quickly upgrade your already acquired item.

So why shouldn't PLs get a relatively quick upgrade option to help them keep up with the power creep?

I don't think people with many PLs should be treated as "mindless automatons" that can only grind because they don't have a life, because they are crazy min-maxers who'd have nothing to do but re-run the game 30 times. They can have more time, they can be more efficient than you in leveling, or both.

Acquiring PLs to me is like acquiring gear. Both are tools to make your toon stronger. The difference is that PLs are passive, basically slot-free since they require no feat, no equipment slot etc...so they can't be too powerful. Some, however, are underwhelming.

-Barb: passive 10 hp count a lot less than they used to. 15 hp wouldn't be too much but I know people still give a lot of value even to those "up to 30" so nvm. Active is good since it counts as a toughness.
-Bard: both are decent I suppose, although +1 to DC is subject to power creep too (and not stackable, and costs a feat...)
-Cleric: passive might get better when and if Turn Undead is improved. Active is a joke.
-Fighter: both are decent, nothing huge but no real need to buff either.
-Paladin: both are very nice. Like for the cleric, if the heal skill ever gets to count, that +2 heal might be of some us maybe...
-Ranger: passive is nice, active is a joke. Can have low ML +5 nat. armor items, can slot it, can drink a vendor-buyable pot for +3...lame, lame active PL.
-Rogue: I suppose both are decent? up to +6 saves vs traps and +3 sneak damage passive seems ok, active too prolly...can it be extended?
-Sorc: passive is ok, as always, numerical values (especially SP) are subject to power creep, but still good. Active is again a joke, at least now it can qualify you for AA w/o a blue bar class level...otherwise useless.
-Wizard; passive is nice, +4 from epic SP made it a bit less useful but still good. Active too, clickie is nice for shiradi's...
-Monk: +1 to damage, nice and very power creep'd now but w/e. Active can prolly find some use on high reflex evasionless builds, not sure how many monks are taking it for the increased dice but I guess it's ok.
-FvS: passive is ok, active is useless.
-Arti: passive is nice, active doesn't look good at all but I might be wrong
-Druid: passive might become good if there's a pet/summon overhaul, now looks meh. Active doesn't seem to be worth a feat.

As you can see many PLs are either waiting/hoping for a game mechanic overhaul, or need to be imporved themselves. Especially the active ones, since they are not "free" at all since you need to use a precious feat slot. Most of them are subject to power creep. While the DC and spell pen ones are still useful, the SP and damage ones lost some of their power. They all just don't scale.
Some of the active ones are complete garbage that needs to be reworked asap.

--------------------------------------------------

I think a good solution would be increasing the passive PL stackability to 5. This way no retroactiveness, but still a buff to help keep up with power creep.

I also think Completionist shouldn't require a feat slot^^

A lot of good stuff here.

Totally agree that Completionist shouldn't require a feat slot. Nobody in their right mind wouldn't take it. I also don't really get why it's not just an automatic at level 1. Why 3?

You do Haverdashers (Elite, Hard, Normal) and Recovering the Lost Tome (Elite, Hard, Normal), take level 2. You do Bringing the Light (Elite) then Information is Key (Elite, Hard, Normal), take level 3. If you're not level 3, do a couple of Durk's Got a Secret (Elite). So the time at level 1 and 2 is so brief that there's no reason not to have Completionist right away.

I won't go over every past life, but just pick up on a couple.

Barby past life: +30HP is never a bad thing, but equivalent to 3 levels in Legendary Dreadnought and exceeded by 2 levels in Fury of the Wild. Sure they stack with both of those, but they are a bit underwhelming. The active feat is a nice +20HP boost early and gives a source of Rage that stacks with other Rages, but doesn't count as a pre-req for Epic Toughness.

Rogue past life: Passive isn't terrible although +1 to Sneak Attack and +2 to Sneak Damage would have been better. The active feat, 3 times per rest for 1 minute you do some good sneak damage, isn't worth the Feat slot - make it always on and I would reconsider.

So maybe an alternative to doubling the benefits of the passive feats would be that if you did a 4th life the active feats become auto-granted instead of requiring a feat slot?

I'd still say that the past lives need some love.

I do get the point that others have made that Past Lives are for 1 to 20 and ED's are for 20 to 25 (soon to be 28). I totally get that. Although it does highlight that even in your own thinking, possibly with the exception of the +9 Spell Pen, that Past Lives become irrelevant when you get to 20 and I don't think they should.

Deadlock

03-02-2013, 03:59 AM

How would you propose fixing the need for multiple past lives to get through spell resistance if you want to double the benefits of past lives?

If the benefits of doing Past Lives is already greater then someone who hasn't done it, how can you double the benefit and keep it fair?

It either becomes trivial for someone with past lives or it becomes near impossible for someone without past lives.

Or a new difficulty setting has to be created which takes past lives into account and those without those past lives just have to struggle through or just forget about doing it. We can call it Epics of Old.

Spell resistance should be lowered to a more appropriate level that a character who has focussed their build to maximise their spell pen shouldn't then be relying on +9 from past lives, that's just bad design. I'm not defending the need to have multiple past lives to get through it, I'm saying the opposite.

I don't think that the good people at Turbine consciously sat in a meeting room with a white-board working out what every source of spell pen was, came up with a number and then decided to double it for mobs' spell resistance. I think they just arbitrarily kept on setting it to a higher number with higher level quests and higher difficulties without really thinking it through properly.

eonfreon

03-02-2013, 04:02 AM

Spell resistance should be lowered to a more appropriate level that a character who has focussed their build to maximise their spell pen shouldn't then be relying on +9 from past lives, that's just bad design. I'm not defending the need to have multiple past lives to get through it, I'm saying the opposite.

I don't think that the good people at Turbine consciously sat in a meeting room with a white-board working out what every source of spell pen was, came up with a number and then decided to double it for mobs' spell resistance. I think they just arbitrarily kept on setting it to a higher number with higher level quests and higher difficulties without really thinking it through properly.

If Turbine doesn't take the +9 from past lives into the equation then the people who do have that +9 from past lives would utterly trivialize it.

How do they balance it for those who don't and for those who do?

Are you now asking for a nerf to that particular past life?

eonfreon

03-02-2013, 04:16 AM

BTW, I do agree that past lives for the most part are becoming irrelevent. I think that's by design. I think that's a good thing. And I do hope Turbine doesn't reverse that trend.

The whole TR idea was a stopgap measure unti they could develop new endgame content. Old Epics too. The design needed to change because the grind just didn't make sense.

To continue to advance one had to give up all their xp and abilities and start anew? Turbine has to have seen the numbers and that only the most "hardcore" would continue under such a system.

They haven't fully learned the right way to do it, which is quite evident with the whole "if you want to advance in Fate Points you have to give up pretty much everything you've earned to be able to earn xp in another, perhaps largely useless ED". It's still a remnant of the old "TR system", like you're starting again every time you want to advance.

I hope they move forward not back. I actually cringed when I heard of an "Epic TR" system.

Deadlock

03-02-2013, 04:21 AM

The only reason it's "marginalized" is because the game is moving on a bit. At the time those we did TR enjoyed the fruits of that labor. They played with "increased power" that those who did not TR could not gain.

TRing was a good way at the time of giving a bonus to keep players playing, as you've touched upon. Before that we just re-rolled or started new players. If you're entitled to "upgraded power" because you did a TR, then shouldn't I have been granted "upgraded power" simply because of the fact that I started playing before you? By your logic, TRing "marginalized" my playtime because I couldn't gain more power when I reached cap and with no TR system in place, I was forced to re-roll and twink out my characters if I wanted to continue. I didn't get +2 to my stats every time I re-rolled a character. Thus TRs "marginalized" my previous efforts, if you want to extend that logic.

My characters came over on the ship from Keeper when the European servers got switched off (19th August 2010). Over there we didn't have the TR option, Prestige enhancements and the level cap was 16. TRing only became an option when we landed here on 25th October 2010 and then levelled up to 20.

Back when Shroud was end-game and 16 was the maximum level, I'd hate to think on the amount of XP that I burned at cap, but we worked on getting greensteel and generally just having a good time.

I've deleted countless much-loved toons who served their purpose at the time, so nope, I'm not suggesting that all of those previous years that I spent playing are marginalised by a system that didn't exist at the time.

Certainly ask for some reasonable little upgrades. Some of the PL feats could use some work. But please, get away from the idea that you deserve an upgrade just because you played the content over and over. So did I. Long before you were ever TRing. How come I wasn't given an upgrade to my abilities when TRs came into existence. I'd certainly re-run the content enought o have TRed several characters.

I'm not talking about the amount of XP that we have all burned at level cap. Similarly, I'm not suggesting that just because I've capped all my Epic Destinies (without grinding Rusty Blades a million times) that when a new Destiny is unveiled that I should automatically get it maxed out just because of the Epic XP that I've burned. I'm not really following what point you're trying to make here.

Later in the year we have some other great stories planned and we plan to focus our attention on the True Reincarnation options and update the system to work for Epic level players. Epic True Reincarnation would also introduce a new completionist track. What would two more stat points do to your TR character? Well, stay tuned this summer for an update on our development progress!

Let's see what we get later in the year.

eonfreon

03-02-2013, 04:29 AM

I've deleted countless much-loved toons who served their purpose at the time, so nope, I'm not suggesting that all of those previous years that I spent playing are marginalised by a system that didn't exist at the time.

Then why are those years you've spent doing TRs now maginalized by the ED system that didn't exist at the time?

I'm not talking about the amount of XP that we have all burned at level cap. Similarly, I'm not suggesting that just because I've capped all my Epic Destinies (without grinding Rusty Blades a million times) that when a new Destiny is unveiled that I should automatically get it maxed out just because of the Epic XP that I've burned. I'm not really following what point you're trying to make here.

So why should your old Past Life feats be given an upgrade because the new system, called Epic Destinies, is unveiled?

Blackheartox

03-02-2013, 04:32 AM

I dont understand those threads lately.

It isnt a full destiny toon vs a completionist.

Its a full destiny toon vs a full destiny completionist..
Unless a completionist has a tough time to farm house of broken xp for 3 days.

O noo more farm i cant take it... After 3 years of grinding, 3 days wont hurt you.

Correct me if im wrong.. But completionst is still better.
And maybe im wrong but take a example on monkchers(to not talk about casters only).

A completionst vs first lifer.
Compeltionst got 3 monk 3 ranger and 3 rogue plifes (in this example)..
So maybe im bad in math, but 9 damge +3 sneak per arrow is better then none of those bonuses + the possible +1 from complet +2 strenght.
As sidenote im still happily grinding plifes with destinies maxed cause i enjoy tring as much as endgame. Why? Cause i love the game and i dont realy have a life.
Triple stack here i come.
And op the cause was prolly that your gimp completionist was overshadowed by a first lifer who knows how to play endgame content.
Wings mean nothing now, they meant smthn but now..

goodspeed

03-02-2013, 04:45 AM

Um, why? It seems to me all that TRing did what it was supposed to do, keep those with nothing better to do than grind busy while the devs figured out something new to call end game.

So, why do you want a cookie?

A jesters cap would be more in order if you ask me.

pretty much. Tring was always a way to stave off the advancement of levels like other mmo's. You can call it whatever ya want, it was just a clever time sink. And now its served its purpose and the next frontier is epic level advancements.

That being said, alot of those past lives suck. Passive and active.

SilkofDrasnia

03-02-2013, 04:50 AM

It's very simple guys, past lives and completionist is a heroic tier thing (1 to 20) it should in no way compete or be close to a EPIC tier destiny.

Also like someone else has mentioned if you cap your destinies it is still giving you some benefits over someone that doesn't have past lives or completionist. You guys are viewing this as endgame when it isn't.

It's just something you can work towards when you get bored of endgame and TR. By and by the TR thing served it purpose and still has some use but it shouldn't compare with the new end game.

pHo3nix

03-02-2013, 04:54 AM

And btw, if you drank a single XP pot then you are no more deserving of "upgraded" power than the "Stone of XP" people you say don't deserve it.

You can get 5% and 10% xp pots for free in game, you got the 20% xp pot every time you TRed if you bought MotU(until they fixed the bug), you can get free pots from the store with coupon code. The real problem is that they introduced xp pots in the store that are not available in game (let's don't talk about xp stones cause those are a shame).

Everything that affects gameplay should be available in game too with a decent droprate (so no, things like yellow dopants are not considered to be available in game considering their drop rate is almost non existant) or be available with some farming (true hearts of wood are a perfect example), so people have a choice.

I agree with you anyway, xp pots(30%-50%) drinkers are in the same boat as those that used the Stone of XP.

SilkofDrasnia

03-02-2013, 04:59 AM

Just wanted to add they are working on a new TR mechanic apparently.

Epic True Reincarnation would also introduce a new completionist track. What would two more stat points do to your TR character? Well, stay tuned this summer for an update on our development progress!

FengXian

03-02-2013, 07:14 AM

Much to say here, I won't quote everything tho...

BTW, I do agree that past lives for the most part are becoming irrelevent. I think that's by design. I think that's a good thing. And I do hope Turbine doesn't reverse that trend.

The whole TR idea was a stopgap measure unti they could develop new endgame content. Old Epics too. The design needed to change because the grind just didn't make sense.

To continue to advance one had to give up all their xp and abilities and start anew? Turbine has to have seen the numbers and that only the most "hardcore" would continue under such a system.

They haven't fully learned the right way to do it, which is quite evident with the whole "if you want to advance in Fate Points you have to give up pretty much everything you've earned to be able to earn xp in another, perhaps largely useless ED". It's still a remnant of the old "TR system", like you're starting again every time you want to advance.

I hope they move forward not back. I actually cringed when I heard of an "Epic TR" system.

Don't be too hasty in dismissing the importance of TRing. In order to have vets to TR, some incentive is needed. Prior to U17, many vets were chain-TRing (or so they say) because end game was meh for them, so we might be used to seeing many people at low levels; if that trend is completely reversed...?

From what you said, I understand you think TRing should be gradually replaced by end game. Now imagine if the vets had no reason to TR anymore: many new players would have a much harder time completing 1-20 content, since less vets would be running it. Running with a veteran player will also teach you a lot, help you understand the game, see how a good build should be etc... if you take that away, new players would have a harder time leveling, some might get discouraged, there would be less lfms since usually it's the vets, more than the newbies, that will be the party leader, explain the quest etc.

Actually, I was thinking quite the opposite these days: I was getting the feeling that a lot of nice low level content was being disregarded simply because not needed (either bad loot or bad xp). I don't think the loot overhaul will change it that much, especially if we move away from TRs: no need for twink items then.

I would:

1) Change the xp curve so that it's a bit more focused on low levels;

2) Add some low level items (maybe random drops, like old ioun stone used to be) that can still be nice at cap, that will be more likely to drop if you run at level. Augment slots are a move in this direction actually, since you can slot low level items with high level augments: imagine a low level item with 3-4 slots, it would be good at 25 too (although I'd rather try a more original solution than just slot number: unique ability + couple of slots for example, or just a good unique ability etc...)

3) Improve PLs so that it's still desirable to TR. This point needs further developement:

First of all keep in mind that epic completionist and lv 15 "veteran" are on their way. I'm assuming you'll still TR from lv 1 even on iconic builds, not sure about how epic completionist will work tho. Depending on info released in the next weeks/months these suggestions might change :) Also keep in mind that in no way PLs should be nerfed. That would make way too many people upset, and they would be right. Given the amount of time needed to grind a PL (some can make it in a week but the average player will take a month...I like to take my time usually, so it could take me even more), any nerf would be devastating.

3.1) Buff the joke PLs like ranger's active...there many of them people would rather replace with an extra toughness. I think we all agree on this point.

3.2) If making them stack to 5 doesn't work, make them work like 3+1 or 3+2: first 3 left untouched plus one or two extra that might either be the same and stack (+5 damage from monk, +50 hp from barb are not OP) or work in a different way. For example, first 3 Wizard PL give +2 SP each; 4th and 5th give +1 SP each. First 3 Sorc lives give +1 evocation, 4th gives +5 universal spell power, 5th gives another +5 or another +1 evocation. And so on.

edit: 3.3) This is a 100% biased suggestion since I like low/medium levels (say 1-14), and it's been already suggested in the past: let us hold back as many levels as we like. I don't see it being gamebreaking at this point, and then it would make sense to release more low level content...

--------------------------------------------

I see some people are saying PLs are just an extra bonus, TRs were just there to keep hardcore players busy etc... I agree PLs should not be a deciding factor in a toon's power, and a first lifer should be able to complete any content with the right gear, with player skill/experience etc... But PLs should not become marginal either. They take a lot of time to acquire, they are useful to the community since they make vets re-run low levels and thus help newbies, they should give a proper reward.

We're not asking for such reward to be increased. We're simply asking for it to be updated in order to keep up with the increasing overall power of the toons, and I think that my suggestions would not create any sort of escalation in power creep.

I like both low level content and end game. I think we should have incentives to run both, but with iconic heroes it seems we'll be moving away from low levels even more. How long has it been since the last low level pack was released? Would it even make sense to release any at this point, if 1) the xp curve isn't adjusted and 2) PLs are not as good as they used to be?

It would be very sad and a big waste of many well designed adventures.

Bacab

03-02-2013, 07:25 AM

/stuff I mostly agree with and I lack a completionist toon.

I think some Past Lives are amazing...such as Paladin PL and Wizard Past Life.

But some are not very good. I will not name those..because it will hurt someone's feelings.

I could say "Barb Past Life" is garbage and people would shout how 10 HP is amazing! And then they would ask why I hate Barbs...
*I love Barbs for the record...
*I just don't play them
*I am stactic TRing my WF Arty with my buddies old WF Barb...
*At 20 I will TR my Clonk into a Healer of some sort to run with his new Horc Barb (same toon as the WF Barb..he just hates the new WF penalties)
*Reason...he has 1 really super geared toon...and not a lotta free time...he LOVEs his ONE MAIN character more than any of you guys would understand (because I assume you are rational people)

Anyway, I would love for some Past Lives to be looked at and brought up to speed. (That's all I was getting at)

Oh, I don't think Completionist or "Triple Completionist" should be improved....

I DO THINK IT SHOULD BE AUTO-GRANTED AT LEVEL 1.

Chaos000

03-02-2013, 07:32 AM

Maybe a boost to Completionist feat upon achieving max favor with all challenges 6 starred?

1. +1 the current benefits of the passive past-life feats.
2. Standard Completionist feat gains an additional +2 to all stats (for a maximum of +4)

Forul

03-02-2013, 08:58 AM

maybe as a way of recognition there could be an area/group that you can only get into if you are a completionist, this area could give different bonus's to completionists maybe along the lines of ship buffs

EnjoyTheJourney

03-02-2013, 09:53 AM

The underlying question is to what extent each of the different in-game ways that characters can become powerful will be allowed to play such a role. The basic categories are stats, feats, skills, gear, and enhancements, but there are also distinct subcategories within the larger group (crafting and past life feats, for example), and EDs obviously expand the list.

It's a given that whenever you increase the number of ways in which characters become powerful (ie: EDs), each of the other ways characters become powerful will count for less, on average. I don't believe that past lives should be pumped up to matter as much as they used to matter, as that would mean other influences character power levels must, on average, matter less.

Dieterstrife

03-02-2013, 09:58 AM

Been some discussion about with a few regular TR friends recently.

We're all completionists and all have multiple toons at 25 so we don't have any special axe to grind one way or another.

One thing that we do agree on though (and would love to hear from the masses on their disagreement with) is that the powerful (not over-powered) nature of ED's do make the past live passive achievements a bit irrelevant.

So our suggestion is simple:

1. Double the current benefits of the passive past-life feats. All of them.
2. Allow triple-completionists to select a new feat Ultimate Completionist at lvl 3+ in addition to the standard Completionist feat, to give a further +4 to all stats and skills across the board.

This shouldn't make anyone overpowered, apart from the standard recognition that they've done something just a little bit special. If you've been building gimps but dragging them through stuff to grind your way to ultimate completionist then an extra +whatever isn't going to make you less gimp, so extra stats won't make you uber.

It does however reflect the fact that your perfect soul has been reincarnated through the maximum number of beneficial past-lives and gives you a little bit of an extra pat on the back for doing so. Someone suggested adding double wings to your character name to differentiate you from the TR gimp masses, you can decide for yourself if this is a good or bad idea.

Nothing in the game should be geared to suit these builds of course. All game balance should remain as-is. But if you've dedicated the time and energy to achieve this status then you will automatically find things a little bit easier there-after.

No. Give them gold wings to signify they are completionists or something, but don't increase the benefit of past lives. That's a horrid idea. That will only mean that there will be more Shiradi Sorcs because EVERYONE will think that there is nothing else that can be capable of running any content besides Heroic Normal than that.

FengXian

03-02-2013, 10:27 AM

It's a given that whenever you increase the number of ways in which characters become powerful (ie: EDs), each of the other ways characters become powerful will count for less, on average. I don't believe that past lives should be pumped up to matter as much as they used to matter, as that would mean other influences character power levels must, on average, matter less.

This is true, but you also need to consider that not every way counts as much as another, and not every way can be acquired as quickly as another.

I'm not gonna consider player skill/experience/gear, we're talking builds; assume identical gear, experienced player etc.

Imho, a heroic build (stats, enhancements, feats etc) counts 45%, destinies count 50% and PLs 5% (it will vary from build to build, for DC/SP based casters PL will count a bit more but you get the idea). Previously heroic build would count what, 85/90% and PLs 15/10%?

EDs wiped away the previous balance becoming at least as important as the heroic build itself. A flavor heroic build (12 wizard 6 ranger 2 fighter elf tempest?) can still be strong even on EE with a good ED. A 3x completionist with a good heroic build but no ED is weaker (which is ok) by far (which is not).

Also what do you guys think about my last post's suggestions, all the low/mid level content etc?

PrimalConcreteSledge

03-02-2013, 10:50 AM

1. Double the current benefits of the passive past-life feats. All of them.

/not signed

Casters still have d20 system, so past lives that give bonuses to DC's are still of the same power as they were before ED's. They were always the most beneficial PL's by most ppls oppinions btw. I agree that something should be done with some of the melee pl's since for ex. +1 to hit means nothing with the new combat sistem...

Silverleafeon

03-02-2013, 10:57 AM

I would like to see an enhancement past life tree added.

Feat slots are so precious is the problem.

It rare one takes more than one or two past life feats,
but if one could pay enhancement points for them?

If one did that, a review of each one would be nice.
It pretty obvious that some are better than others.

Adding Racial Past life bonuses however small would be nice.

Adding something whereby we may give up XX Epic Levels to
gain a permanent XX bonus would be nice.

Adding a double and triple completionist bonus would be nice.
Making completionist feat available in the enhancement tree would be nice.
Or when you take the completionist feat, you get to choose a active past life
feat for free if you have done completionist one; two active past life feats
for free if you are a double completionist; three active past life feats free
if you are a triple completionist.

I don't feel like these changes need to be powerful, just add some love.

Feats are very precious, please consider making dragonmarks cost 1 feat not three.
Please consider allowing us to pick up the completionist feat for a more reasonable cost.
Please consider we have all these active past life feats available to choose from,
but no space to take them.
Please consider reducing the feat costs for prestige classes, especially the silly ones.
Please review the description feats such as Stealthy and consider offering them in
their own enhancement tree or granting them as some sort of bonus feat system.

Ravelock

03-02-2013, 11:01 AM

[Shears-based god mode] EDs making EE soloing / raid "achievements" irrelevant?

Matuse

03-02-2013, 11:11 AM

All I'm saying is that when you look at what you get for 3 of some of the past-lives it's fairly weak.

I refer you back to my earlier comment of: THEN DON'T DO IT.

Or in lieu of that, point me to where you are required to TR for gains you find unacceptable.

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 11:58 AM

Past lives are not redundant. At least not the Wizard one as it gives a fairly decent boost for casters. My first life Wizard has all three feats, I believe the Enhancements for spell penetration, a decent item, and twists to boost it even further. Last I checked my spells still had some issues bypassing spell penetration on Epic Elite. At least for the more brutal ones. With the level cap going to 28, Turbine will either have to implement more sources or raise the existing ones if they wish to keep past lives as unnecessary.Which just points out a PLF that was made to powerful to begin with. Because, believe it or not, spell resistance is supposed to give casters issues with casting spells it effects.

FengXian

03-02-2013, 11:59 AM

I refer you back to my earlier comment of: THEN DON'T DO IT.

Or in lieu of that, point me to where you are required to TR for gains you find unacceptable.

Err, how about fixing unbalanced stuff instead of just setting it aside?

Or are you of the opinion that if tempest is weak, "don't roll one", if DWS is useless, "don't use it", if old sands epic are weaker than some of their heroic versions "don't epic them" and so on?

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 12:05 PM

Heck you could even put the past racial TR feat as a requirement for certain racial enhancements, that'd DEFINITELY add some spice into the mix.That would work great...if getting me to no longer play the game were their goal. As that would just tell me that TRing went from an option for those who go for that sort of thing, to an expectation for those of us who see it as the hamster wheel that it is.

As it stands, TRing is not required for any other mechanic in the game and that is how it should stay.

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 12:16 PM

Nothing better to do than play the game you mean?

Nothing better to do than TR and then level up again, helping others gain some XP in their pugs and helping to show newbies a few tricks that they've picked up along the way?Well the last part is just PR fluff (one need not TR to do that, nor does one need to do that to TR, so irrelevant), but yes. Play the game with a rather narrow focus maybe. But whatever it took to keep the content devourers occupied while an attempt to reinvent the game were made. Without making the needed grind excessive for those who don't play that way.

The point is EDs were made as powerful as they are to make it possible to balance the game for both the casual first life character and the triple completionist by making the relative difference in character power small.

FengXian

03-02-2013, 12:32 PM

Well the last part is just PR fluff (one need not TR to do that, nor does one need to do that to TR, so irrelevant), but yes. Play the game with a rather narrow focus maybe. But whatever it took to keep the content devourers occupied while an attempt to reinvent the game were made. Without making the needed grind excessive for those who don't play that way.

The point is EDs were made as powerful as they are to make it possible to balance the game for both the casual first life character and the triple completionist by making the relative difference in character power small.

The more people TR, the more it's likely for new players to meet vets at low/mid levels, the more low/mid levels LFMs will be up, the more newbies will be able to learn. It's very relevant.

Every game has different categories of players. We're talking about casual vs hardcore but there's a lot of gray in between. I don't think casual players should always be able to complete the same content as hardcore players. I think that the more time and dedication one decides to put into a toon, the more powerful that toon should be. There has to be a cap of course, but if by spending 1 you gain 10 from Epic Destinies, by spending 100 you gain 1 from Past Lives. You are suggesting that it's ok that a player who spends 1 has 10 and a player who spends 101 has 11.

Also you say "content devourers" as if it was a bad thing. I like low to replay low level content, I think the xp curve could be adjusted a bit. More incentives to TR would help it too, as well as making us hold back more than one level if we wanted to, so we can spend more time at low levels. Nothing gamebreaking.

Again, when was the last time low level content was released? So D&D now is only lv 15+?

Regardless everything else, the gimped active past lives no one ever takes should be fixed

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 12:32 PM

I've enjoyed every life that I've done. Some more than others depending on what I was trying to do that life. I spend as long at end-game as I can put up with, then get bored with it and TR.

I'm not knocking the TR mechanism itself, I think it's a genius idea and is definitely part of what's kept me playing.Which is what the system is supposed to do.

All I'm saying is that when you look at what you get for 3 of some of the past-lives it's fairly weak.This just points out to me that some past life feats are a bit more powerful than they should be.

A few people have said that changes to the past live will lead to power creep, but I completely disagree with that. Like I said in the OP, quest mechanics shouldn't be changed to cater for people for multiple past lives. The fact that you already need multiple past lives to get through mob's spell resistance is just wrong and should be fixed.Because spell resistance that resists spells is wrong? Other than the way the right PLF's can make spell resistance irrelevant, this seems to me to be working right.

Paleus

03-02-2013, 12:41 PM

Rather than Buff past life benefits, just reduce the TR XP requirement. The benefit of past lives is no longer commenusrate with their grind. And with my incurable altitis I would much rather TR a character to try something out than to have to roll up a whole new one. For the people that would be annoyed at other people having an easier time getting what they spent lot of time grinding out, I point to old epic items vs new epic items. As the game grows what took a long time to grind out in the past takes less now. It how the game adjusts to the new norm.

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 12:51 PM

I do get the point that others have made that Past Lives are for 1 to 20 and ED's are for 20 to 25 (soon to be 28). I totally get that. Although it does highlight that even in your own thinking, possibly with the exception of the +9 Spell Pen, that Past Lives become irrelevant when you get to 20 and I don't think they should.Actually, past lives shouldn't have a major effect at any point in the game. They never should have been, and most aren't, powerful enough to make or break a character. Just a little something to show for going through the leveling process again for those who play a lot and like grinding for those little extra bonuses.

Making them bigger or must have effects would only result in turning off or burning out those players who don't see character development as the only reason to play.

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 01:02 PM

Spell resistance should be lowered to a more appropriate level that a character who has focussed their build to maximise their spell pen shouldn't then be relying on +9 from past lives, that's just bad design. I'm not defending the need to have multiple past lives to get through it, I'm saying the opposite.

I don't think that the good people at Turbine consciously sat in a meeting room with a white-board working out what every source of spell pen was, came up with a number and then decided to double it for mobs' spell resistance. I think they just arbitrarily kept on setting it to a higher number with higher level quests and higher difficulties without really thinking it through properly.Personally, I think they purposely set it at a level that most casters would have a problem hitting (all the while kicking themselves for making so much available from past lives) in an attempt to get players to do the logical thing and use spells on high SR mobs that aren't resisted, or maybe use weapons on those mobs.

Using resistible spells on mobs with high SR should range from pretty much a waste of SPs for those who don't focus on spell pen to rather inefficient for those who do.

FengXian

03-02-2013, 01:10 PM

Actually, past lives shouldn't have a major effect at any point in the game. They never should have been, and most aren't, powerful enough to make or break a character. Just a little something to show for going through the leveling process again for those who play a lot and like grinding for those little extra bonuses.

Making them bigger or must have effects would only result in turning off or burning out those players who don't see character development as the only reason to play.

No one is asking to make them "must have effects", nor making them better would make them "must have effects".

silinteresting

03-02-2013, 02:15 PM

just my thoughts but some past lifes do need changing.
i would change melees past lifes definetly but not casters.

there is already a difference between melees power and casters
and maybe this would be a good way of closing the gap a touch.

the one change 1 would like to see is the fighters +1 dc to combat feets
changed to a +2 but thats just me ;)

others i dont no, +1 damage when hitting for hundreds a time is a joke,
but what to put into its place i have no idea.

i do feel tho that past lifes should mean somthing and to be frank unless
your a caster there a joke. but times change, items change, the game changes
etc etc.

by the way as a side note i do play all types of toons so im not biased in my opinion,
its just my opinion.

your friend sil :)

aristarchus1000

03-02-2013, 02:28 PM

eonfreon

03-02-2013, 02:34 PM

The more people TR, the more it's likely for new players to meet vets at low/mid levels, the more low/mid levels LFMs will be up, the more newbies will be able to learn. It's very relevant.

While I see your point, I also see quite the opposite happening within game, more often than not. Yes, there are many TRs who do play with others, however they can also, in general, be the most exclusionary category of players there are. And I don't blame them. Depending on what they are trying to accomplish, they may have a long grind to get through. They want to do it as fast and as efficiently as possible.

While they may indeed play with some new players here and there, but even when they do, the majority don't actually play with the new players in their groups, they play FOR the new players. Do this, do that, jump over this, jump over that. Ignore that fight, we can skip it. Run this way and don't break anything. Sure, some knowledge is imparted, but in a usually very rapid fire way.

Some new players enjoy this quick learning experience, some don't.

The benefits of having TR vets in a group are not nearly as great as you're trying to make it sound. In many cases, new players are better off not even having contact with them.

I understand why and really have no issue with it. I also did my stint while grinding out 100 Favor runs to get my EDs (because in principle I was against having to pay for them- my own irrational behavior) and I re-ran the content as fast as I could. Sometimes I would group up just to break the monotony and I did get to the point where I was biting at the bit and frustrated by how slow new players normally play. I realized that if I played with new players and answered their one million questions I would more than double the time it would take to achieve my goals.

There are very few TRs, of course depending on personality and how "hardcore" they are, that have the patience to really play with new players. They may let them "tag along" but they won't slow down for them, help them if they get lost, or even talk to them, more often than not.

It's not always that way of course, but I feel you're trying to "hype" the benefits of TRs as far as "helping" new players because of your own agenda. So I just wanted to point out the way I've actually seen it play out in the game. Which is not usually a benefit to the new player's game experience.

Every game has different categories of players. We're talking about casual vs hardcore but there's a lot of gray in between. I don't think casual players should always be able to complete the same content as hardcore players. I think that the more time and dedication one decides to put into a toon, the more powerful that toon should be. There has to be a cap of course, but if by spending 1 you gain 10 from Epic Destinies, by spending 100 you gain 1 from Past Lives. You are suggesting that it's ok that a player who spends 1 has 10 and a player who spends 101 has 11.

THat is because it's a brand new system. The player who "spends 101 for 11" is still above what the person who "spent 1 for 10". If the person with 10 wants 11, he still has to spend that extra 100, which you've "already spent". It doesn't make too much sense to further reward the one who has already "earned 1" simply because he already "spent 100".

The main problem I have is that you're basically asking for retroactive gain. For instance, you're saying that the 100 you spent for 1, when that was the only way to gain that 1, should now count for 2, because someone else can do another thing, the 1 for 10. But the thing is, so can you spend the "1 for 10" and you still have your "100 for 1". WHich a new player will also have to do to get that "1".

I understand you want more incentives. But then they should perhaps create something new to incentivize it. Such as a "spend 101 for 2" not retroactively make "100 = more". Perhaps something called "Epic TR" for those who want a little extra jump in power by doing some repetitive grind.

I believe more people will be turned off by that level of repetitive grind than will be willing to do it. If it's only a small increase in power, like it currently is, then it won't create as big a divide between those who are willing to do a large grind and people who don't.

Also you say "content devourers" as if it was a bad thing. I like low to replay low level content, I think the xp curve could be adjusted a bit. More incentives to TR would help it too, as well as making us hold back more than one level if we wanted to, so we can spend more time at low levels. Nothing gamebreaking.

You already like low level play. So in fact, you don't need further incentive. I'm personally pretty much over low level play. It annoyed me that Turbine put so much time and effort into it when they re-designed the game to accomodate f2p.

I understood why and I don't blame them. But they created precious little high end stuff once they went to f2p. I was capped for a long time before they finally created new things for me to do.

In short, I don't see any need to incentivize re-running the content. It's time for Turbine to take it's developmental money and put it into the endgame. It's past time, in my opinion.

Again, when was the last time low level content was released? So D&D now is only lv 15+?

I'm quite glad that DDO has moved away from creating low level content. In my opinion, it's taken them too long to move forward. The 15+ content is where there is the least amount of needed content and XP. There is plenty of low level content and xp, Turbine doesn't need to create more. It is time for Turbine to develop it's endgame. It's taken them years to get started. I'm glad they are moving on. I do cringe at the idea of "Epic TR" but I'll wait and see, of course.

Regardless everything else, the gimped active past lives no one ever takes should be fixed

Perhaps. However, since you are not required to TR, they can basically just be ignored. That way new development can be done on new things, not tinkering with old yet again. I'm certainly not adverse to any changes and improvements made, but I have my own agenda and it differs from yours. I don't care if they improve past lives, passive or active, because I don't TR. However, I want to make sure they don't improve it in such a way that it makes it harder for me to have a comparable character simply because I never agreed to play in the TR grind train.

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 02:35 PM

The more people TR, the more it's likely for new players to meet vets at low/mid levels, the more low/mid levels LFMs will be up, the more newbies will be able to learn. It's very relevant.Personally, I always cringed at having a TR in the group, still do. I'm not one who finds someone playing the game for me to be a good thing. Exploring a dungeon with a tour guild (if they didn't just run off and complete the **** thing) isn't exploring IMO.

Every game has different categories of players. We're talking about casual vs hardcore but there's a lot of gray in between. I don't think casual players should always be able to complete the same content as hardcore players. I think that the more time and dedication one decides to put into a toon, the more powerful that toon should be. There has to be a cap of course, but if by spending 1 you gain 10 from Epic Destinies, by spending 100 you gain 1 from Past Lives. You are suggesting that it's ok that a player who spends 1 has 10 and a player who spends 101 has 11.The amount of effort and the reward for it was shown up front. Personally, I think the wings were a bad idea as it gave players the suggestion that some were special because they spent 100 to gain 1 simply because that's all the game had left of interest to them.

Also you say "content devourers" as if it was a bad thing. I like low to replay low level content, I think the xp curve could be adjusted a bit. More incentives to TR would help it too, as well as making us hold back more than one level if we wanted to, so we can spend more time at low levels. Nothing gamebreaking. No content devourer is simply a common term used for a particular play style.

No, the game needs absolutely no incentive to TR beyond the simple desire to do so. TRing serves the need of giving players who have nothing else to do, something to do. While remaining something that can be ignored by those who are unwilling or unable to dedicate the time to it with out really missing it. Simply put, it's an optional time sink for those who have various amounts of extra time that doesn't get in the way of the rest of the game (to much anyway).

Again, when was the last time low level content was released? So D&D now is only lv 15+?

Regardless everything else, the gimped active past lives no one ever takes should be fixedWhy? Those are the one's that are actually WAI. While I think it would be wrong to nerf the one's that are more than a token reward at this point. I see no reason to buff up those that are just that. PLFs shouldn't be the reason players TR. They should be the placebo players use to justify to themselves why they are playing a game that they simply enjoy playing when they have already done everything else. Good enough to not be a joke (+1 to heal skill would be something that would fit that description), but not really game changing (some cross this line IMO).

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 02:42 PM

No one is asking to make them "must have effects", nor making them better would make them "must have effects".Hardly noticeable effects would be where the bar should be set. It's there and intellectually one knows it's there, but it's hardly noticeable when actually playing = they got it right.

Rafal

03-02-2013, 03:01 PM

I actually think the stacking past life feats, notably the wizard/caster ones are too powerful, and really discourage newer players. I think Turbine is kicking themselves for the Wizard and FvS past life Spell Penetration effects, and you see that they are making it less important by not releasing recent content with high SR.

I have an easy fix, make these not stack with feats. :)
Max penetration will be the same for TRs and non TRs but TRs will get two extra feats to use. +1 damage or +1 to hit as well as extra 10 hp or sp will never be game breaking but DCs and Penetration are from the definition. These make spells useful or useless.

I do think that is totally reasonable to decrease the XP required on 3rd life TRs to compensate. I also think they should make the ACTIVE feats more worthwhile. Make them really compete with the "essentials."

Agree. There is no reason to make this hamster wheel that big. My other problem is the fact, that I'm forced to play a caster on my monk with all monk's stuff and nothing for a caster. I would rather pass this Torc to a caster then take it for myself just to help me get through 2 lifes easier. I'll make another "caster" toon to do these. It would be beautiful to be able to somehow "trade" your lifes to get completionist without doing a bard or sorc on a mainly monk toon.

And don't make Completionist free. It's really, really powerful as is. It effectively is 10 feats rolled into one already. Including Spell Focus (all), Skill Focus(all), Damage(+1), to Hit(+1), hitpoints(+25), Saves(+1 all). Any character should be able to find room for that, even if it means replacing Toughness.

I disagree here. A lot of people I talk to say the feel +2 to all stats is not worth the grind so from this standpoint the opinion is not really matching what you said. And for most classes only some stats are actually beneficial. Caster hardly needs more STR or barbarian INT. It would not really be game breaking unless everyone would be grinding like crazy to have it.

Clatterfist

03-02-2013, 03:06 PM

I feel that TR benefits hold up pretty well at epic levels. You'd have to spread a fair few points around in Grandmaster of Flowers to get the 6 stacking elemental resistances you can get from three Ranger lives, or make a decent twist investment in order to get the +3 Evocation DCs from three Sorcerer lives, and those aren't the only benefits to having those past lives, and they can be stacked on top of the ED eqauivalents.

Riggs

03-02-2013, 03:06 PM

One thing that we do agree on though (and would love to hear from the masses on their disagreement with) is that the powerful (not over-powered) nature of ED's do make the past live passive achievements a bit irrelevant.

So our suggestion is simple:

1. Double the current benefits of the passive past-life feats. All of them.
2. Allow triple-completionists to select a new feat Ultimate Completionist at lvl 3+ in addition to the standard Completionist feat, to give a further +4 to all stats and skills across the board.

This shouldn't make anyone overpowered....

Nothing in the game should be geared to suit these builds of course. All game balance should remain as-is. But if you've dedicated the time and energy to achieve this status then you will automatically find things a little bit easier there-after.

Ummm..yeah - when has Turbine ever NOT boosted monster power by more than whatever players have been given?

Adding in yet more stacking stats would guarantee - 100% - that the next update would be even harder for non-twinked and multi-TR characters.

The game is already way too far on the power creep.

What would be more useful, without raising watermarks yet again - was that a Completionist got 4 of the active past live feats for free. Double - 8, Triple - all of them.

Further - passive bonuses really do need an upgrade, and improve the extra enhancements available for taking a past life feat.

This would give a completionist more breadth, more things it could do, more versatility - not higher core stats - which the game has already gone way overboard on already.

IN fact - completionist or not - you should not have to take an active feat - it should be given automatically. Any class that has just the 7 feats available is already way too tight for feats - requiring using those up for small little bonuses from another class is generally a total waste of time.

Silverleafeon

03-02-2013, 03:11 PM

Regardless everything else, the gimped active past lives no one ever takes should be fixed

It would be nice if these were reviewed or placed in an enhancement system.

Most toons have zero to three luxury feats.
Most commonly one or two, particularly while gaining epic levels.

For those luxury feats we spend one on completionist right off the bat.

By luxury I means things we don't absolutely have to have for our toon to function decently.
Then there are feats we almost always take like toughness.

Silverleafeon

03-02-2013, 03:13 PM

What would be more useful, without raising watermarks yet again - was that a Completionist got 4 of the active past live feats for free. Double - 8, Triple - all of them.

Further - passive bonuses really do need an upgrade, and improve the extra enhancements available for taking a past life feat.

This would give a completionist more breadth, more things it could do, more versatility - not higher core stats - which the game has already gone way overboard on already.

IN fact - completionist or not - you should not have to take an active feat - it should be given automatically. Any class that has just the 7 feats available is already way too tight for feats - requiring using those up for small little bonuses from another class is generally a total waste of time.

Sign me up for this philosophy +1 mate

eonfreon

03-02-2013, 03:45 PM

I guess my basic problem with the whole concept of "improving" past life benefits is that it has already served it's purpose. It's time to move forward, not sideways, in my opinion.

Some people say it will become a "waste of time" to do it.
So what? Don't do it then.

But I already did it.
If it's a waste of time, why did you do it then?

Because it wasn't a waste of time before.
So, then you didn't waste your time then did you? You actually played the game and got the benefits that were advertized.

Yeah, but now they aren't as useful because of the new benefits that are more useful.
So what? Go out there and get the benefits that are useful. The old "less useful" benefits still stack with the new "better" benefits. So you already have a leg up. Why should you be given a retroactive benefit for something you've already done?

Because I played the game that Turbine "made" me.
Come on. You played because you wanted to play. I didn't like the game Turbine wanted me to play so I didn't play. You reaped the benefits, whatever they were, so you got exactly what they told you you would. Nothing more, nothing less. They never promised you that they wouldn't ever create bigger and better things to aspire to. Nor that the old things would hold up in whatever "power" they had.

If the past life Feat for a Sorc is useless to the Monk you want to finally play, why did you TR as a Sorc in the first place?
Because "Completionist" was there? Why did you need Completionist? You knew the costs for the rewards. Why do you now need any upgrades?

Especially to the old stuff. They are already discussing an Epic TR. It will probably be something to keep everyone who likes that sort of thing busy acquiring. Whether the old past lives are good or suck, I don't thinkn they deserve any adjusting at this time.

I want to see new stuff added before they tinker with old stuff yet again.
If it's now a waste of time, then don't waste your time.
If you already wasted your time, then you didn't really waste your time at all, because you got exactly what was advertized.

I did consider it a waste of time. Hence I didn't do it. And yes, I'm not the only one. Turbine finally seems to be creating more content that doesn't involve having to repeat the old content ad nauseum nor cannibalizing their early game to add to the late game. They need to create more Epic content, not just re-cycle old content for higher levels, it's getting old, IMO.

There is no need to create new incentives to do old things nor to further reward those who have already done the old things. You did it. You got the reward that they said you would.

Why should more be given?

dlsidhe

03-02-2013, 03:56 PM

It would be nice if these were reviewed or placed in an enhancement system.

Most toons have zero to three luxury feats.
Most commonly one or two, particularly while gaining epic levels.

For those luxury feats we spend one on completionist right off the bat.

By luxury I means things we don't absolutely have to have for our toon to function decently.
Then there are feats we almost always take like toughness.

If you look at the leaked enhancement info, some of that is coming to pass. An example (from the leak) is that Assassins get to use dex-to-hit and dex-to-damage when wielding daggers or kukris, which eliminates weapon finesse being necessary unless you want to use other finesse weapons - which in turn don't get the benefits of other parts of the PrE (like increased crit range, etc.). So it makes dex-based rogues both viable and "gives" them a free feat so long as they stay specialized in the PrE, allowing something like a second toughness, or a boost to fort or will saves, an active past life feat...something that would now be junk, but might be worth squeezing in if you aren't locked into certain feats automatically.

While no caster info has leaked yet, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see something similar - savants getting +1 or 2 DC to an elemental spell damage type rather than a spell school, which could open up grabbing different spell-focus feats than evo or conjuration, or make really high DCs feasible, PMs getting a boost to spell pen on necro spells, AMs getting more SLA options, Angels of Vengeance getting a boost to DCs on light/alignment/fire spells, etc. One of the stated goals of the enhancement pass is to move away from feat requirements for the PrEs so that they are less cookie-cutter, so I wouldn't be surprised to see many builds having more "luxury feats" become available.

Uska

03-02-2013, 03:58 PM

Umm no to much and ed's only affect the game from 20 and up so thats not everyone I tend to try and tr soon after hitting 20 as I enjoy the journey more than the destination.

FengXian

03-02-2013, 04:14 PM

While I see your point, I also see quite the opposite happening within game, more often than not. Yes, there are many TRs who do play with others, however they can also, in general, be the most exclusionary category of players there are.

I expected this reply. On cannith we have plenty of heplful vets. I've grouped a lot with people actually willing to explain stuff to newbies. But even just letting them tag along will teach them a lot if they're willing to learn.

Anyway, even if you were right about that many vets being exclusionary, those who are not are still helping newbies out. If TRing becomes/stays a waste of time, newbies will be a lot more on their own. And I can guarantee it's NOT a good thing, contact with more experienced players is very important to learn that con is not a dump stat etc...

The main problem I have is that you're basically asking for retroactive gain.

If that is the main problem, we have no problem. As I suggest PLs could simply be allowed to stack up to 5. If that's too much, make 4th and 5th passive PL different (like +1 SP for wizard instead of +2, but could also be +2 to-hit for fighters instead of +1). Would that be ok with you?

Perhaps. However, since you are not required to TR, they can basically just be ignored. That way new development can be done on new things, not tinkering with old yet again. I'm certainly not adverse to any changes and improvements made, but I have my own agenda and it differs from yours. I don't care if they improve past lives, passive or active, because I don't TR. However, I want to make sure they don't improve it in such a way that it makes it harder for me to have a comparable character simply because I never agreed to play in the TR grind train.

Eww, this is surprisingly subjective. I could say I don't like EDs and I don't want them to make other stronger than I am w/o them but...?

You are basically saying both low level content and the TR system should go down the sink because 1) you don't care about it but also 2) you don't want those who care to gain enough from it to be stronger than you, who don't want to bother TRing? Props for being straightforward and sincere but I strongly disagree, especially with point 2).

The amount of effort and the reward for it was shown up front.

Except it wasn't. The reward back then was, say, 10% of build's power. Now it could be 5% for casters and 2% for melee? It's definitely not the same since it was designed in a non-scaling way. You could say people should expect power creep in such games, but the TR system is not simply a piece of gear you can replace with a better one. To prove this, think about how many items were nerfed retroactively. Now imagine if devs retroactively nerfed PLs. It would be DoOoOoOoM!, for real...
I still think that my above suggestion (allow 4th/5th passive PL, different from the 1st 3 if needed) stay very valid.

No, the game needs absolutely no incentive to TR beyond the simple desire to do so. TRing serves the need of giving players who have nothing else to do, something to do. While remaining something that can be ignored by those who are unwilling or unable to dedicate the time to it with out really missing it. Simply put, it's an optional time sink for those who have various amounts of extra time that doesn't get in the way of the rest of the game (to much anyway).

Funny how I could say the same thing about end game, gear farming, ED farming, raiding etc... If you have fun only in end game doesn't mean other people don't have more fun replaying low levels with different character (or possibly in different quests: I am running Threnal for the first time now for example, still never did Titan raid, don't even have 3BC etc., and new content would also help with that).

PLFs shouldn't be the reason players TR. They should be the placebo players use to justify to themselves why they are playing a game that they simply enjoy playing when they have already done everything else.

Don't forget this is your very personal opinion and it doesn't necessarily reflect the true state of things. In other words, I'm pretty sure the "fix unbalanced things" argument is miles ahead the "they should be as I say because" one...

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 04:33 PM

Funny how I could say the same thing about end game, gear farming, ED farming, raiding etc... If you have fun only in end game doesn't mean other people don't have more fun replaying low levels with different character (or possibly in different quests: I am running Threnal for the first time now for example, still never did Titan raid, don't even have 3BC etc., and new content would also help with that).This is only possible if TRing gives better rewards how exactly?

In my experience, none of that requires one to TR at all. Then again maybe I'm just that much better a player that I didn't need 36 point builds and a slew of past life feats in order to run 3BC. Though I doubt it, so it would seem TRing could actually offer no additional power and still fulfill the purpose of letting those who like to rerun the content on a freshly re-started character.

eonfreon

03-02-2013, 04:40 PM

I expected this reply. On cannith we have plenty of heplful vets. I've grouped a lot with people actually willing to explain stuff to newbies. But even just letting them tag along will teach them a lot if they're willing to learn.

Anyway, even if you were right about that many vets being exclusionary, those who are not are still helping newbies out. If TRing becomes/stays a waste of time, newbies will be a lot more on their own. And I can guarantee it's NOT a good thing, contact with more experienced players is very important to learn that con is not a dump stat etc...

If that is the main problem, we have no problem. As I suggest PLs could simply be allowed to stack up to 5. If that's too much, make 4th and 5th passive PL different (like +1 SP for wizard instead of +2, but could also be +2 to-hit for fighters instead of +1). Would that be ok with you?

Eww, this is surprisingly subjective. I could say I don't like EDs and I don't want them to make other stronger than I am w/o them but...?

You are basically saying both low level content and the TR system should go down the sink because 1) you don't care about it but also 2) you don't want those who care to gain enough from it to be stronger than you, who don't want to bother TRing? Props for being straightforward and sincere but I strongly disagree, especially with point 2).

Except it wasn't. The reward back then was, say, 10% of build's power. Now it could be 5% for casters and 2% for melee? It's definitely not the same since it was designed in a non-scaling way. You could say people should expect power creep in such games, but the TR system is not simply a piece of gear you can replace with a better one. To prove this, think about how many items were nerfed retroactively. Now imagine if devs retroactively nerfed PLs. It would be DoOoOoOoM!, for real...
I still think that my above suggestion (allow 4th/5th passive PL, different from the 1st 3 if needed) stay very valid.

Funny how I could say the same thing about end game, gear farming, ED farming, raiding etc... If you have fun only in end game doesn't mean other people don't have more fun replaying low levels with different character (or possibly in different quests: I am running Threnal for the first time now for example, still never did Titan raid, don't even have 3BC etc., and new content would also help with that).

I am being completely straight-forward, just as you are. Just as you say that they should create new incentives and new content for the part of the game you enjoy, I feel no they shouldn't, it's time to concentrate on the parts I enjoy ;). Both are basically just opinions. However, it's an opinion based on the way things currently are. You're the one asking for a change, not I. They are finally catering to my likes. I want it to continue that way. Your wants and my wants don't have to coincide, nor do they have to be mutually exclusive, since Turbine could have the resources to do both and satisfy us both, to some extent. However, in the world of limited resources that most things exist in, I have to say that if it is one or the other, I'd much ratrher they spend time on my interests.

You've had your day. I want mine now ;).

So just in case Turbine is actually reading this thread and is formulating how the game should be played from her on in, I want them to continue work on EDs and put TRs, especially the old stuff, on the back burner. I feel it served its purpose and it's time to move on and forward. Which seems to be happening, thus I'm pleased.

As far as the "percentage of power" that was what you inferred from it not what was ever said that it would be, nor what it would stay. It was 10% at the time because it was 10% at the time. As new things are added the percentage of the effect of old things is going to naturally go down in many cases. Just like +5 was 100% of the best + there was for a weapon. Now that there are +6 (and possibly higher), +5 is no longer 100%.

Don't forget this is your very personal opinion and it doesn't necessarily reflect the true state of things. In other words, I'm pretty sure the "fix unbalanced things" argument is miles ahead the "they should be as I say because" one...

This last part is someone else you've quoted. But it is an opinion I share. And no, my argument is not "they should be as I say because". My argument is "I finally like the way things are and I don't think fixing unbalanced things that are of an old variety shoud be that much priority". The one who makes the "they should be as I say because" argument is Turbine. I don't have that clout.

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 04:42 PM

Don't forget this is your very personal opinion and it doesn't necessarily reflect the true state of things. In other words, I'm pretty sure the "fix unbalanced things" argument is miles ahead the "they should be as I say because" one...The entire reason many TR is to become imbalanced and your plea to make that imbalance even larger just doesn't do it for me. I'm sorry, but IMO (yes I realize it's just my opinion, just as I realize what you post is simply your opinion), if TRing imbalances things further it will just give the devs more reason to balance the game around characters having those past lives. Which is when I start looking for a new game as I simply am not fool enough to put up with that level of mindless grind (again, my opinion) to remain viable. I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one who thinks that either. Even if they don't take it into consideration, allowing that level of imbalance to exist in the game would likely be reason enough to quit simply due to embarrassment over playing such a poorly developed game. Again, just my opinion.

Lyria

03-02-2013, 04:52 PM

If that is the main problem, we have no problem. As I suggest PLs could simply be allowed to stack up to 5. If that's too much, make 4th and 5th passive PL different (like +1 SP for wizard instead of +2, but could also be +2 to-hit for fighters instead of +1). Would that be ok with you?

I've still yet to see an argument for this that isn't anything more than "I want to be more powerful". TRing gives you more stat points, and access to past life feats. Yet people seem to think that this isn't enough anymore, and want their past lives to actually stack up higher and higher, so they're "equivalent" (or nearly so) to EDs, despite the fact that they can have EDs ON TOP OF their PLs.

Eww, this is surprisingly subjective. I could say I don't like EDs and I don't want them to make other stronger than I am w/o them but...?

Past lives are already reasonably powerful. Extra stat points, and feats that give you some nice benefits -- some of which exceed 2pt abilities in the EDs -- and you get those for "free" (as in they don't come from a limited pool of resources).

You are basically saying both low level content and the TR system should go down the sink because 1) you don't care about it but also 2) you don't want those who care to gain enough from it to be stronger than you, who don't want to bother TRing? Props for being straightforward and sincere but I strongly disagree, especially with point 2).

Why would the low level content "go down the sink?" Nobody is arguing to GET RID of it. It's still there. There's TONS of low-level content -- you yourself even said that you haven't run a bunch of it. The reason they focus more on the higher level content is simply due to the fact that the majority of players are going upwards, not backwards. As they get higher level, they need more stuff to do.

While I'm certainly not against them adding more low/mid-level content, I don't think it's something they really need to focus on. People pass low-level content fairly quickly. It's not like 18th levels are going back "for the experience" of running low-level stuff. They might do it for favor, but that's it.

Except it wasn't. The reward back then was, say, 10% of build's power. Now it could be 5% for casters and 2% for melee? It's definitely not the same since it was designed in a non-scaling way. You could say people should expect power creep in such games, but the TR system is not simply a piece of gear you can replace with a better one. To prove this, think about how many items were nerfed retroactively. Now imagine if devs retroactively nerfed PLs. It would be DoOoOoOoM!, for real...
I still think that my above suggestion (allow 4th/5th passive PL, different from the 1st 3 if needed) stay very valid.

Yep, as time goes on things become less powerful in comparison to a character's total power. That's just how it goes. Mental Toughness used to be a pretty sizable bump in mana for most characters, "back in the day". Now? You have wizards running around with 3000+ mana, sorcs and fvs with 4000+. 100 mana makes almost zero difference. Should MT and IMT be buffed up to be doubly effective, because they're not as powerful anymore in comparison?

And you actually hit the nail on the head with the comment about TRing: It's NOT something you can replace with better gear, or a new power. You'll ALWAYS have that ability. It may not be as huge of a buff as it used to be, but it's still a buff. Why do you feel it needs to be even better? Is it because you're afraid of first-life ED characters possibly achieving a level of power that almost rivals your own? Is that why you want more power added to TRing?

Funny how I could say the same thing about end game, gear farming, ED farming, raiding etc... If you have fun only in end game doesn't mean other people don't have more fun replaying low levels with different character (or possibly in different quests: I am running Threnal for the first time now for example, still never did Titan raid, don't even have 3BC etc., and new content would also help with that).

Nothing stops you from replaying low-level content. Nothing at all. If that's what's fun for you, by all means, keep doing so. But eventually everyone DOES reach the "end game"; that's the nature of MMOs. You have to have stuff there to keep them busy at high levels, or they get bored. Not everyone is going to think "Hey, I know, I'll just abandon everything I've gained with this character and start over at 1st level!" That just doesn't resonate with most players.

Don't forget this is your very personal opinion and it doesn't necessarily reflect the true state of things. In other words, I'm pretty sure the "fix unbalanced things" argument is miles ahead the "they should be as I say because" one...

There's nothing imbalanced about TRs. They work fine. They give you advantages that non-TRs don't have. Why this burning need to have even MORE advantages?

EnjoyTheJourney

03-02-2013, 05:20 PM

eonfreon

03-02-2013, 05:31 PM

The best proposed solution I've read, assuming there's a problem to solve, is to ease the XP requirements to TR; if TRing produces a less noticeable bump in character power, then it makes sense to ask people to do less grinding when they TR.

A further bump to what TRing offers in terms of how much a character's power is increased strikes me as a really bad idea that's likely to set off a chain reaction of complaints about how much more other aspects of the game need to be pumped up, to compensate for their relative drop in how much they help characters to be effective.

This I fully agree with. Lowering the xp requirements has beem something asked for many, many times. However, the suggestion is generally dismissed because the ones who have already done multiple TRs generally say that it would de-value the time they put into it and that if someone wants the power, they should put in as much work to get it as they did. However, now that the "power" is "less in comparison" perhaps the idea will gain more popularity.

FengXian

03-02-2013, 05:42 PM

It's become quite the quote-fest^^

@Gremmlynn: I'm not saying I need PLs to run Threnal or 3BC. I'm saying if it wasn't for PLs I'd prolly never have a reason to run/rerun low and mid level content AT LEVEL. Which is where you actually have fun, not at 25 in a lv 10 quest.

@Lyria: I don't really need extra PL stacks to become more powerful, simply because my main is only at its 7th life and I still have plenty of room for more PLs even with the current system. I'm not sure I'll ever get completionist, let alone triple. So I'm not arguing out of hunger for power.

Your MT comparison makes sense, but don't forget MT is a feat you can swap in/out anytime, and can be acquired very easily, while a PL takes some grind.

As for replaying low levels just for the sake of it, I've seen the argument "you should play just for fun, reward or no reward" many times now, it's not how it works. A reward is part of the fun, it's, well, the rewarding part of completing a difficult task.

Imho you guys are wrong to think PLs should just give tiny, hardly noticeable bonuses. Sure the MAIN source of a toons power should be the heroic build + the epic levels (destinies in our case). But a past life takes a lot of work to acquire and the reward should be noticeable.

And even if you disagree with all the above, I think you have to agree that PLs are imbalanced towards each other. Some of the passive ones, but even more the active ones (which are NOT FREE, they are feats that are hard to acquire and thus should be even more powerful than the average). To me it looks like your vision of the game doesn't care a tiny bit about people who are able/willing to put more effort into it for a greater reward, while I am trying to think about everyone.

The last note: why would a casual player care about a hardcore player being much stronger? In most MMOs a hardcore player will be miles ahead the casual ones, even simply because of experience, why does it seem to be such a big deal here, where even top difficulty content can be run by not-so-top players? I want there to be a difference. I want a game where casual players run norm/hard and elite players run elite, that was the meaning behind those diffs before the game started to shift towards a wider user range.

I, as a customer, will keep asking for more quality, harder content, greater rewards for greater efforts. I want challenges with uncapped CR where the best ones can test themselves, and drop random gen items of levels casual players can only reach via loot gems, for example. That's because if you know you're a casual player, you shouldn't expect to be able to reach the very top, nor it should bother you that someone else can.

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 05:43 PM

This I fully agree with. Lowering the xp requirements has beem something asked for many, many times. However, the suggestion is generally dismissed because the ones who have already done multiple TRs generally say that it would de-value the time they put into it and that if someone wants the power, they should put in as much work to get it as they did. However, now that the "power" is "less in comparison" perhaps the idea will gain more popularity.Yep and shutting down the game will someday "devalue" all the time all of us put into it. If that's a problem one probably shouldn't play online games at all.

Though I don't see how lowering the xp would help with giving players who like the leveling content so much get more out of it. Seems the reverse, so maybe raising the xp requirement would be the right move.:p

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 05:46 PM

FengXian

03-02-2013, 06:10 PM

Because "it's something you enjoy doing" isn't a good enough reason to do it? If that's the case then I really don't know what to say.

Because, al Lyria said:
Not everyone is going to think "Hey, I know, I'll just abandon everything I've gained with this character and start over at 1st level!" That just doesn't resonate with most players.

As I said I enjoy both TRing and playing at cap. I was having lots of fun with my last life on my main, but I also wanted to TR him both to replay low levels and to try out a different build. And it would have been much harder to decide to basically delete a lv 25 toon if I hadn't known it'd have been a bit more powerful next life. PLs are an incentive. End game does become boring after a while, but I as many other people will need an incentive if we are to decide to relinquish all those hardly gained xp and restart the process.

To many people the reward is a very important part of the game, I'm sure you'll understand this sooner or later.

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 06:13 PM

Imho you guys are wrong to think PLs should just give tiny, hardly noticeable bonuses. Sure the MAIN source of a toons power should be the heroic build + the epic levels (destinies in our case). But a past life takes a lot of work to acquire and the reward should be noticeable.This is where I'm going to have to disagree. If it's not a small bonus, then it either unbalances the game for those who have it, which isn't a good thing long term, or it becomes a requirement in order to be in balance with the rest of the game, which makes the game unattractive to anyone who isn't into the sort of long and repetitive grind that is required to get it. Even worse, these bonuses are spread out amongst 13 classes. A diverse selection of classes is nice as it appeals to the tastes of many different players. Basically forcing everyone to play every class, on the other hand, is not a good things as every class doesn't appeal to every player.

So the trick is to give those who enjoy grinding for that extra a way of doing so without forcing the rest to do so to avoid being second class citizens. TRing does that for the most part.

eonfreon

03-02-2013, 06:21 PM

The last note: why would a casual player care about a hardcore player being much stronger? In most MMOs a hardcore player will be miles ahead the casual ones, even simply because of experience, why does it seem to be such a big deal here, where even top difficulty content can be run by not-so-top players? I want there to be a difference. I want a game where casual players run norm/hard and elite players run elite, that was the meaning behind those diffs before the game started to shift towards a wider user range.

I, as a customer, will keep asking for more quality, harder content, greater rewards for greater efforts. I want challenges with uncapped CR where the best ones can test themselves, and drop random gen items of levels casual players can only reach via loot gems, for example. That's because if you know you're a casual player, you shouldn't expect to be able to reach the very top, nor it should bother you that someone else can.

I am not exactly a "casual gamer". I once was "on top" as you put it. The game progressed beyond what I cared to engage in. Became one I didn't care much about at all. Thus I eventually became more and more casual.

However, don't mistake the fact that I only care about DDO currently in a casual manner, for me being a "casual" level player. I may not be a powergamer; I will not always redo everything simply to adapt to whatever nerf and buffs are currently in-game, but I knew exactly how to build my characters to maximize my own advantages.

I grew tired of a game with flip-flopping vision of what endgame should be. And I thought it was "cheap" to put aside developing new endgame in favor of gaining character advancement by re-running old content. TR was initially "sold" as an option to upgrade your character. It was sold as a superior method from the one we had, which required you to play the game to endgame basically grinding out enough favor to unlock 32 pt builds and then re-roll to be able to take advantage of the very reward you had grinded for.

However, it was supposed to be a stopgap. A way to prolong the life of the game by giving people something to do while Turbine was busy restructuring the game's financial business model. It wasn't supposed to be endgame. Endgame already existed long before TRing was introduced. There was a cap and there was things to do at cap. And there were updates that extended that cap and gave NEW content at the new cap.

The game is finally moving forward. If the rewards are no longer enough to keep you TRing, then perhaps it's time to stop TRing? If the enjoyment you get from running the old content is no longer enough, if you need more rewards, that's fine, I understand why you would rather get better rewards. However, if they don't implement better rewards for the old system, then you'll have to decide if you want to continue doing TRs.

I understand your point of view. And I see why you want more incentives. However, it isn't about "casual" players and "hardcore" players. It's about one type of gameplay and another type, basically. The only reason you could now label me as "casual" is because I didn't "buy" into the newest "hardcore" mode. Now I can finally be hardcore and enjoy the game as I like it. I am no longer "forced" to be "casual" simply because I refused to play an aspect I didn't enjoy.

There are also many "casual" players who TR. I've even seen them pipe up in this thread. They do it because they "enjoy the journey", they don't care about the rewards nearly as much as you do.

It doesn't bother me that someone else can "gain" more "power". It does bother me if the game I want to play focuses any more "power" in an aspect I have no desire to play in.

If it's a minute improvement, then of course I won't be bothered. But that is seldom what is asked for. You want a "noticeable" increase in power. I am against the idea of Turbine spending any more time revisiting and upgrading the grindiest part of the game. As it stands, they probably will have an Epic TR that will indeed cater to your desire to gain "noticeable" increases in power through "grindy" gameplay.

I hope they have enough sense not to repeat the TR grind of old. And they certainly shouldn't upgrade the power of the old system such that it becomes necessary to replay the low level game over and over just to be able to be competitive at end game.

The mistake you make is thinking that it's only casual gamers that dislike grindy gameplay.

Gremmlynn

03-02-2013, 06:37 PM

I am not exactly a "casual gamer". I once was "on top" as you put it. The game progressed beyond what I cared to engage in. Became one I didn't care much about at all. Thus I eventually became more and more casual.

However, don't mistake the fact that I only care about DDO currently in a casual manner, for me being a "casual" level player. I may not be a powergamer; I will not always redo everything simply to adapt to whatever nerf and buffs are currently in-game, but I knew exactly how to build my characters to maximize my own advantages.

I grew tired of a game with flip-flopping vision of what endgame should be. And I thought it was "cheap" to put aside developing new endgame in favor of gaining character advancement by re-running old content. TR was initially "sold" as an option to upgrade your character. It was sold as a superior method from the one we had, which required you to play the game to endgame basically grinding out enough favor to unlock 32 pt builds and then re-roll to be able to take advantage of the very reward you had grinded for.

However, it was supposed to be a stopgap. A way to prolong the life of the game by giving people something to do while Turbine was busy restructuring the game's financial business model. It wasn't supposed to be endgame. Endgame already existed long before TRing was introduced. There was a cap and there was things to do at cap. And there were updates that extended that cap and gave NEW content at the new cap.

The game is finally moving forward. If the rewards are no longer enough to keep you TRing, then perhaps it's time to stop TRing? If the enjoyment you get from running the old content is no longer enough, if you need more rewards, that's fine, I understand why you would rather get better rewards. However, if they don't implement better rewards for the old system, then you'll have to decide if you want to continue doing TRs.

I understand your point of view. And I see why you want more incentives. However, it isn't about "casual" players and "hardcore" players. It's about one type of gameplay and another type, basically. The only reason you could now label me as "casual" is because I didn't "buy" into the newest "hardcore" mode. Now I can finally be hardcore and enjoy the game as I like it. I am no longer "forced" to be "casual" simply because I refused to play an aspect I didn't enjoy.

There are also many "casual" players who TR. I've even seen them pipe up in this thread. They do it because they "enjoy the journey", they don't care about the rewards nearly as much as you do.

It doesn't bother me that someone else can "gain" more "power". It does bother me if the game I want to play focuses any more "power" in an aspect I have no desire to play in.

If it's a minute improvement, then of course I won't be bothered. But that is seldom what is asked for. You want a "noticeable" increase in power. I am against the idea of Turbine spending any more time revisiting and upgrading the grindiest part of the game. As it stands, they probably will have an Epic TR that will indeed cater to your desire to gain "noticeable" increases in power through "grindy" gameplay.

I hope they have enough sense not to repeat the TR grind of old. And they certainly shouldn't upgrade the power of the old system such that it becomes necessary to replay the low level game over and over just to be able to be competitive at end game.

The mistake you make is thinking that it's only casual gamers that dislike grindy gameplay.Not to mention I have a problem equating replaying the games low level content over and over with being "hardcore". My personal vision of hardcore TRing would involve having only two past lives; 26 and 24 point builds. Now that is something that would deserve wings around the name.

Chaos000

03-02-2013, 07:03 PM

SilkofDrasnia

03-02-2013, 07:28 PM

*snip*

Imho, a heroic build (stats, enhancements, feats etc) counts 45%, destinies count 50% and PLs 5% (it will vary from build to build, for DC/SP based casters PL will count a bit more but you get the idea). Previously heroic build would count what, 85/90% and PLs 15/10%?

EDs wiped away the previous balance becoming at least as important as the heroic build itself. A flavor heroic build (12 wizard 6 ranger 2 fighter elf tempest?) can still be strong even on EE with a good ED. A 3x completionist with a good heroic build but no ED is weaker (which is ok) by far (which is not).

Also what do you guys think about my last post's suggestions, all the low/mid level content etc?

The current TR system may need some small revision for the PL that have mostly always sucked. You are not counting this correctly you are saying the PLs count for 5% but this is not so it still counts for the same % as before because it is meant for 1 to 20, it is for the heroic levels.

During the heroic levels from 1 to 20 it's still still as good as it was because the EDs do not kick in during that period. I believe that is why they are adding a Epic tier PL track. Furthermore any benefits you get from the Epic PL track should not kick in until the ED themselves do thereby keeping a certain balance for the lower levels.

IMHO a first life toon with epic destinies should be stronger than a toon with X amount of past lives but no destiny during the Epic levels stage.

During the heroic levels a TR toon should be stronger than a first life one.

This hamster would like a brand new wheel to run in rather than a repainted old one!!!

Juduss

03-02-2013, 07:32 PM

Globally increasing the power of past life benefits would be too much.

I think some small increases would be appropriate in specific cases; ie. the fighters +1 to attack has become largely irrelevant under the new combat system. Specific cases like this could be looked at for a minor tweak to increase relevancy.

As for the completionist feat it's self, I would like to see two changes:

1) Make the completionist feat passive instead of active. You earned it, you shouldn't have to sacrifice a build's feat slot to get the bonous.

2) I would like to see the compleetionist feat being added on to the "or" category of feat prerequisites. For instance the sorc pre's tier 2 requires one of the following feats: Spell Focus Conjuration/Evocation or PL Arcane Prodigy. I would like to see completionist added to all such "or" lists.

FengXian

03-02-2013, 08:11 PM

There are also many "casual" players who TR. I've even seen them pipe up in this thread. They do it because they "enjoy the journey", they don't care about the rewards nearly as much as you do.

It doesn't bother me that someone else can "gain" more "power". It does bother me if the game I want to play focuses any more "power" in an aspect I have no desire to play in.

If it's a minute improvement, then of course I won't be bothered. But that is seldom what is asked for. You want a "noticeable" increase in power. I am against the idea of Turbine spending any more time revisiting and upgrading the grindiest part of the game. As it stands, they probably will have an Epic TR that will indeed cater to your desire to gain "noticeable" increases in power through "grindy" gameplay.

I hope they have enough sense not to repeat the TR grind of old. And they certainly shouldn't upgrade the power of the old system such that it becomes necessary to replay the low level game over and over just to be able to be competitive at end game.

The mistake you make is thinking that it's only casual gamers that dislike grindy gameplay.

Yes, I did imagine you were an experienced player, and by "casual" I wasn't referring to you directly but to the whole category (since there were recent related discussions about how hard EE should be etc...)
I am a casual player myself, I have tried the grind of TRing quickly and I didn't like it because it felt like a job, it was boring and I want to play my toons at cap rather than chain-tr. So my opinion is not biased about this^^ To me TRing is not a grind, I enjoy it and my goal is not getting the PL/reward asap. However, for example, since I already have 3x ranger PLs I'm trying to avoid a new ranger life even if I'm pretty sure I'd have lots of fun (I did the other 3 times which was surprising actually, 3 identical builds in a row...), but knowing it will do me no good on the "long" term, I'm avoiding it.

Once again, if a small, non-retroactive improvement wouldn't bother you, then my 4th+5th balanced PL suggestion should be ok with you as well (last time you just said you'd rather have devs work on other stuff, but let's assume they have time for both; I understand it's on the bottom of your priority list but let's not consider that for a sec).
Would there be anything wrong with fixing the useless active PLs and allowing a 4th and a 5th passive PL, adjusted so that they don't become too good on top of the first 3?

This hamster would like a brand new wheel to run in rather than a repainted old one!!!

Is it too much to ask for both? :P

We're getting the new wheel this summer it seems...It'd be nice if the old one got fixed too, shouldn't really take too much effort.

Racial past lives are also an interesting idea btw.

SilkofDrasnia

03-02-2013, 08:26 PM

*snip*

Is it too much to ask for both? :P

We're getting the new wheel this summer it seems...It'd be nice if the old one got fixed too, shouldn't really take too much effort.

Racial past lives are also an interesting idea btw.

Well that might be nice two wheels to run in but be wary what you ask for, Turbine fixing something often leads to grief.... :p

eonfreon

03-02-2013, 11:22 PM

Yes, I did imagine you were an experienced player, and by "casual" I wasn't referring to you directly but to the whole category (since there were recent related discussions about how hard EE should be etc...)
I am a casual player myself, I have tried the grind of TRing quickly and I didn't like it because it felt like a job, it was boring and I want to play my toons at cap rather than chain-tr. So my opinion is not biased about this^^ To me TRing is not a grind, I enjoy it and my goal is not getting the PL/reward asap. However, for example, since I already have 3x ranger PLs I'm trying to avoid a new ranger life even if I'm pretty sure I'd have lots of fun (I did the other 3 times which was surprising actually, 3 identical builds in a row...), but knowing it will do me no good on the "long" term, I'm avoiding it.

Once again, if a small, non-retroactive improvement wouldn't bother you, then my 4th+5th balanced PL suggestion should be ok with you as well (last time you just said you'd rather have devs work on other stuff, but let's assume they have time for both; I understand it's on the bottom of your priority list but let's not consider that for a sec).
Would there be anything wrong with fixing the useless active PLs and allowing a 4th and a 5th passive PL, adjusted so that they don't become too good on top of the first 3?

Is it too much to ask for both? :P

We're getting the new wheel this summer it seems...It'd be nice if the old one got fixed too, shouldn't really take too much effort.

Racial past lives are also an interesting idea btw.

As far as what you ask for, it does sound reasonable. Barring aside my preference for "just leave it be". But I'm not the best to judge these things because I've disliked the system for so long. I don't really have any basis for determining what is fair and balanced. My personal preference is it should just be as is, simply because I don't want to see anything more added to it. I personally think it's silly that a system exists that keeps you from playing a class you like, such as the Ranger, because of the lack of long-term benefits.

It actually mirrors my own dislike of the system. Once it was quite enjoyable to re-run the content because I wanted to. I wanted to try out new builds and I liked the old quests. But after repetition after repetition I grew tired of it. And when Epics and TRing was introduced it was put in as a "grind" which was contrary to the way we had played the game until that time. Heck, the box itself advertized a "grind free game".

But it was understandable, since Turbine needed to add something to keep the "old timers" playing. But after a while it became quite evident that they didn't have any real reason to add to the endgame since they had "brilliantly" figured out a way to keep old players (and eventually new players) grinding the same old junk to keep advancing. So after a while I realized they didn't care about making an interesting end game. They seemed quite content to milk the "obsessessive-compulsive" drive of many players. So I slowly lost respect for them.

Now they finally give the end game attention (as far as I can figure the numbers finally showed that they had dried up what they could milk from the old systems). So I want them to keep working on that. A lot of the past life feats were ill-thought out jokes. Yep. But they were always presented as such. They didn't promise something they didn't deliver. They just didn't promise much. When you don't promise much it's pretty easy to keep that promise.

And don't get me wrong. I think the endgame and ED's are far from a "great" system. The whole idea of having to abandon something you've advanced in to be able to continue to advance your character's progress is a glaring "throwback" to the TR system. And that alone p1sses me off.

Basically, I really enjoyed DDO once upon a time. I gave up on it because of DDO's lack of new development. I understood the idea behind TRing and turning old quests into "Epic" versions. But I didn't think they were going to milk it for as long as they did. And I had hopes they wouldn't keep making the same mistakes moving forward. But it looks like they intend to make "grind for grind's sake" a staple of the game. Fine. It is what it is.

As it is, I'll happily play the game because I took such a long break from it. It's great to play with old friends. It's great to find that I can still take my old "gimped" characters (once top of the line) and just fall in with old buds who've also come back out of curiosity, and make short work out of the "new" quests (you mean EGH, which I know like the back of my hand, yeah that's gonna be tough, if I had developed amnesia somehow). Sure, some of us are rusty and struggle to finish EE content without making asses of ourselves, but we are pretty "hardcore", we'll do it smoothly eventually.

What we won't do is view the game as work. If we have to play old stuff forever to advance, we'll go do other stuff. Simple as that.

I know a lot of what I say doesn't relate to what you're asking for. I know I'm rambling. But it is still entwined. You bring up the fact that you enjoy the lower level stuff and want reasons to play it. There has always been a reason to play it. Because you enjoy it. That's why I played it over and over. But if it becomes about the rewards, like Turbine made it, then it's less about because you want to, but instead becomes because you "have" to. Or at least "have" to if you want to be "relevant" or "competitive" (and let's not kid ourselves, we're all pretty competitive to some degree).

Doesn't it suck that you "can't" play a Ranger even though you want to, because the system actually "punishes" you if you do, in that there is no "reason" to do so other than you enjoy it. But you have to "suffer" through more xp requirements and gain nothing in exchange. You've done 3 lives, thus it becomes irrelevent doesn't it? Today you ask for 4+5 lives. But then it'll become irrelevent when that is accomplished. So tomorrow do you ask for 6+7 lives? Might as well. I would if I enjoyed that aspect.

So, it all boils down to this: ED have NOT made past lives irrelevent. But yes, they've made them far less relevent. Because they've served their purpose. You liked that hamster wheel? Good for you. I didn't. Thus I want it to move on. So far Turbine has decided to move on. As always they "screw" their old game for their new game. Nothing new there. And let me make it clear; I don't think they've got it down yet. I'm not enjoying the game because of their stupid systems that require abandoning past progress to make future progress. I'm enjoying it DESPITE their stupid systems. And I'm enjoying it for the reasons I enjoyed it before. Because once the stupid grind aspect is taken away, it is a very engaging game, with top notch quests design that promote cooperation and teamwork. The dungeons are well crafted. The stories are nicely developed. There are many ways to accompish different tasks.

I don't want any more to be added to old TRs, because I feel they've had enough done for them as it is. If anything, just lower the TR xp requirements. That way I may actually want to delve back into it. Not because I really want "more power" but because I would like a reason to play that old content in a progressive manner without having to pay for xp options that allow me to advance at a "reasonable" manner. If Turbine hadn't decided to milk the xp grind I would've been happy to participate. As it is, I've had far more fun just rolling new characters on different servers. Yep, 28 pt characters were more fun to me than being part of the hamster wheel.

Yes, EDs have outstripped the power of past lives. But they are not irrelevent. They are only irrelevent if you wanted them to be the highest level of power forever. I'm talking to the OP here. Not to you. Because what you suggest and what he suggests are not even in the same ball park. Heck, they're not even in the same league. You make reasonabloe requests to keep you interested in playing what you like. Join the club. However, the OP wants more "power" added in retroactively. And he even has the balls to try and dictate who is worthy of this upgrade and who isn't. Takes balls and other things I ain't allowed to say to describe that kinda gall. But I don't want to be a jerk myself. I'd rather believe he really didn't just think it through. Hopefully the OP isn't that type. The type who felt he had "done it the hard way" and noone else deserved it who hadn't "jumped through the same hoops". Because I actually liked discussing things with him when he did engage me and I'd like to think he isn't the type of person that really thinks he's done something extraordinary by having time to play a game he enjoyed.

Lyria

03-02-2013, 11:34 PM

@Lyria: I don't really need extra PL stacks to become more powerful, simply because my main is only at its 7th life and I still have plenty of room for more PLs even with the current system. I'm not sure I'll ever get completionist, let alone triple. So I'm not arguing out of hunger for power.

Your MT comparison makes sense, but don't forget MT is a feat you can swap in/out anytime, and can be acquired very easily, while a PL takes some grind.

Swapping it out doesn't help you though, does it? And you can't just do it "at will", you have to have the shards and pay the fee. A PL feat is always there, always giving you a bonus. And isn't taking up a precious feat slot. Yes, PLs take more grind, but once you have them, they're PERMANENT. You never lose them.

As for replaying low levels just for the sake of it, I've seen the argument "you should play just for fun, reward or no reward" many times now, it's not how it works. A reward is part of the fun, it's, well, the rewarding part of completing a difficult task.

And you GET a reward. You get +2 stat points (up to 36) and a past life feat. Your argument is simply that you want the rewards to be more.

Imho you guys are wrong to think PLs should just give tiny, hardly noticeable bonuses. Sure the MAIN source of a toons power should be the heroic build + the epic levels (destinies in our case). But a past life takes a lot of work to acquire and the reward should be noticeable.

When did I say they gave "tiny, hardly noticeable bonuses"? They give fairly SUBSTANTIAL bonuses once you get several of them stacked up. Is +9 spell pen a "tiny, hardly noticeable bonus?" Hell no. It's huge! Sure, it takes some work to get it, but once you get it, you have that permanently. It's not like you can just take a feat called "Epic Grand Master Spell Penetration: +9" and compete with it.

The problem is is that you're seeming to claim that PL feats are barely noticeable. And I say that's completely wrong. A "barely noticeable" past life feat would be something like "Gives +1 spell penetration with hold monster". THAT would be a useless past life feat, because it's extremely specific. Think of it this way. For 3 points in the magister ED you can get +3 spell penetration. For a single wizard past life you get +2. You get almost the same bonus that that person does for spending 1/8th of their total ED points. And it's free. And permanent. Switching EDs doesn't make it go away.

And even if you disagree with all the above, I think you have to agree that PLs are imbalanced towards each other. Some of the passive ones, but even more the active ones (which are NOT FREE, they are feats that are hard to acquire and thus should be even more powerful than the average). To me it looks like your vision of the game doesn't care a tiny bit about people who are able/willing to put more effort into it for a greater reward, while I am trying to think about everyone.

I disagree that past life active feats should be "more powerful than the average". Some of them are somewhat weak, but overall they're fairly decent feats if you want to spend a slot on one. TRing isn't any HARDER than leveling up normally. It just takes longer. And you get benefits from it, with the passive past life feats and extra stat points.

And no, I completely and UTTERLY disagree with "your vision of the game doesn't care about the people who are putting more effort into it". That's complete BS, and I take offense to it. If someone puts in the extra time to TR, they DO get rewarded for it. They get past life feats (free) and extra stat points, and have the ability to buy active past life feats if they want. What it seems like is what YOU want is for TRing to become "equally viable" to EDs, even though you can have BOTH. And that should not happen, simply because if someone does end up with both (and they will eventually, even if they're a TR junkie) they'll have even more power, and the game will have to be scaled up to match it -- it would push TRing more towards a "mandatory" thing people would have to do, rather than an option.

This is ultimately where we come to an impasse. You want PL feats to be powerful enough so that they make a sizable difference in a character's power, despite the game having moved on since they were introduced. I, on the other hand, think they're fine as they are -- they give fairly substantial bonuses to certain things, in exchange for someone leveling up again (or multiple times). PLs should never be on par with EDs, for one reason: passive PL feats are a completely free bonuses that take up zero of your feat slots/ED points. If you were able to stack them to the point that they start to overshadow ED abilities (and some of them already do), it would hand too much raw power to characters who do both.

People already claim that epic elite is "too easy". You really want to make them complain about it even MORE?

The last note: why would a casual player care about a hardcore player being much stronger? In most MMOs a hardcore player will be miles ahead the casual ones, even simply because of experience, why does it seem to be such a big deal here, where even top difficulty content can be run by not-so-top players? I want there to be a difference. I want a game where casual players run norm/hard and elite players run elite, that was the meaning behind those diffs before the game started to shift towards a wider user range.

It has nothing to do with "casual vs hardcore". Not a bit. There is absolutely nothing "hardcore" about TRing. Nothing. Zero. Zip. Someone who has a first-life character with maxed out EDs is just as "hardcore" as someone who's TR'd multiple times. Why? Because they've both put in a lot of work to get there. Why SHOULDN'T they be able to have a go at the "top-end content"? You think it should be restricted to only multi-TRs? That's some pretty crazy elitism right there.

I, as a customer, will keep asking for more quality, harder content, greater rewards for greater efforts. I want challenges with uncapped CR where the best ones can test themselves, and drop random gen items of levels casual players can only reach via loot gems, for example. That's because if you know you're a casual player, you shouldn't expect to be able to reach the very top, nor it should bother you that someone else can.

See, here's the issue I have with it. You're not after a "challenge for the sake of a challenge" at that point. You're after a tougher challenge for better gear. You want stuff that the "poor casual plebes" can't hope to ever achieve.

TRs should always be a purely optional choice, and one that doesn't have a massive impact on the end game. Why? Because if it does, it FORCES people to TR in order to compete.

And that would be a nail in the game's coffin.

ichigo911

03-03-2013, 01:22 AM

decease

03-03-2013, 02:14 AM

i think dev did mention something about epic tr coming along with the upcoming expansion..

Uska

03-03-2013, 04:51 AM

Uska

03-03-2013, 04:52 AM

i think dev did mention something about epic tr coming along with the upcoming expansion..

yes they did and it sounds as if they are considering something about regular tr's as well

Uska

03-03-2013, 04:53 AM

One thing I think completionist should get is a newer shinier set of TR wings different than others just to show off the hard work they did to achieve it.

For triple Completionist I would say have even shinier wings to show off their efforts.

I think they should give completionists the feat for free(no dont have one or even close) also triple completionts should get the special wings and a new feat that adds another boost and be called True Completionists.

Silverleafeon

03-03-2013, 05:18 AM

If you look at the leaked enhancement info, some of that is coming to pass. An example (from the leak) is that Assassins get to use dex-to-hit and dex-to-damage when wielding daggers or kukris, which eliminates weapon finesse being necessary unless you want to use other finesse weapons - which in turn don't get the benefits of other parts of the PrE (like increased crit range, etc.). So it makes dex-based rogues both viable and "gives" them a free feat so long as they stay specialized in the PrE, allowing something like a second toughness, or a boost to fort or will saves, an active past life feat...something that would now be junk, but might be worth squeezing in if you aren't locked into certain feats automatically.

While no caster info has leaked yet, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see something similar - savants getting +1 or 2 DC to an elemental spell damage type rather than a spell school, which could open up grabbing different spell-focus feats than evo or conjuration, or make really high DCs feasible, PMs getting a boost to spell pen on necro spells, AMs getting more SLA options, Angels of Vengeance getting a boost to DCs on light/alignment/fire spells, etc. One of the stated goals of the enhancement pass is to move away from feat requirements for the PrEs so that they are less cookie-cutter, so I wouldn't be surprised to see many builds having more "luxury feats" become available.

That would be so nice.

Every life I do, its hard to find room for my completionist feat.

.

Hutoth

03-03-2013, 05:19 AM

How about an additional benefit at lvl 20 and another at 25?
Rather than further trivialize sub 20 content because of post lvl 20 power?

Kambuk

This. I am a "casual" player by the standards prevailing on this forum, and I love TR'ing.

TR'ing should not be just a very very slow way to respec. Having it matter a little more at cap would be great, and you could integrate with the ED system:
e.g.

On reaching 20, allow a TR to choose destiny based on what they have unlocked AND what their new toon would be able to select if they were 1st life.

Also you could do something like this:

Past life grants 1 point's worth of twist (not overlapping with the normal twist slots) that must come from a specific destiny (depending on the class), so e.g. 1 fighter past life allows one LD slot at tier 1, 3 fighter past lives would allow that slot to be upgraded or a second slot added as LD past life twists only.

NaturalHazard

03-03-2013, 05:24 AM

Adjusting the xp is an excellent idea

Yes it is...... and I don't mind them making completionist not cost a feat and this is from someone who will never have a completionist.

Uska

03-03-2013, 06:24 AM

Yes it is...... and I don't mind them making completionist not cost a feat and this is from someone who will never have a completionist.

Neither will I takes me to long to level since I dont like power lvling

FengXian

03-03-2013, 06:41 AM

NaturalHazard

03-03-2013, 07:01 AM

Vint

03-03-2013, 07:16 AM

Adjusting the xp is an excellent idea

They will

Spend $200 on the collector's issue of the new expansion and when you tr it will start you at level 15.*

No need to fix xp when they can sell it to us.

*Speculation

FengXian

03-03-2013, 07:59 AM

does the OP's suggestion widen the gap a bit between those who haven't really tr'ed or only tr'ed a few times compared to people who have done the whole 3x lives of everything that matters?

Say I have done 1 ranger, 1 monk, and 1 pally life, im a monk archer, the other guy has done 3 of each of those lives and has the same build.

Currently he will be 10% heal amp ahead, 2 melee damage ahead, and 4 ranged damage ahead. If it gets bumped up like the OP suggested it will be 20% heal amp ahead 4 melee damage ahead and 8 ranged damage ahead. Is that enough to make a huge difference between those who haven't stacked on the past lives?

I agree that doubling the benefits would be too much. I also agree some passive PLs like wizard, paladin, ranger are already good.

Monk for example tho: you have 1x monk PL, he has 3, he will have +2 damage. Following my suggestion, nothing would change, except he'd have the option to do 2 other monk lives for another +2 damage. Would that really be too much, considering we have one single item granting +5 atk/damage, FotW granting +6 damage on top of tons of other things, lv 28 incoming and so on?

Also we're talking fanta-DDO here, because there aren't that many 3x completionists, let alone 5x. I think a +5 damage after 5 monk PLs would not be overpowered nor it would lead to more power creep. But just in case there could be other options. For example 4th and 5th monk PL granting +1 to damage while wieldind a ki weapon, or while centered etc...but at least there would be an option for those who want to/can keep TRing.

Lyria

03-03-2013, 12:32 PM

@Lyria: there's some serious misinterpretation going on here.

1) I have already said the SP bonus of wiz/fvs past lives is very good. But other PLs are not relevant anymore. The hp from barb, the damage from monk and even more so from rogue, the to hit from fighter they all matter a lot less now.
They ARE hardly noticeable.

If you go for a class/build with tons of hp, then yes, +30 isn't that noticeable in the grand scheme of things. But then, neither is the +23 from toughness, is it? How noticeable is the +105 mana from mental toughness to a character with 3000+ mana? How noticeable is the +1 DC from spell mastery to a character with 50+ DCs?

It's not always about "this one bonus makes all the difference", or "you can really tell you took this one feat/ability/etc". Everything adds up. And +30 hp on a class that DOESN'T get scads of bonus hp (say a wizard, sorc, rogue, etc), it can be the difference between 550 and 580, which IS a sizable difference.

2) Ok, forget about the "above average" feat, but better than a second+ toughness? Definitely, they should be. And many are not. Barskin clickie, seriously?? It was bad even back in the day but now natural armor grows on trees :D

There are plenty of feats that aren't really worth taking. Exotic weapon: Shuriken? Athletic? Bullheaded? Combat Casting? Not every feat is equal. Yeah, it sucks, but that's D&D (and by extension DDO) for you.

3)

No way, I never gave the slightest hint of wanting PLs to be equally viable to EDs. I have explicitely said that an EDs does count more than a triple completionist despite the huge difference in the effort needed to acquire them, and it should be like that.
However I do think PLs should "scale" better. And this can be done either by slightly buffing the current ones (the ones which are not very good already like the SP ones), since there can still be a big difference between "useful" and "sizable difference in power". Or, to avoid retroactive buffs, to allow us to take a 4th and maybe a 5th passive, even less powerful than the first 3. That would NOT lead to more power creep, and it would both give people more reasons to TR and let PLs scale a tiny bit better with current (and incoming) power creep.

But, again, WHY should they "scale better?" None of the other feats do. Spell Focus doesn't get better and better as you get higher level. Neither does Dodge, or Weapon Focus, or most feats. And those take up feat slots, they're not "freebies".

And I can't believe you can even argue that "giving people the ability to add more power wouldn't add to power creep". Seriously? That's almost the DEFINITION of power-creep.

And again, active PLs do take a feat slot, they are not free and they should be adressed since some really, really suck.

So do a lot of feats. By that logic they should go over every feat in the game.

4) You also misunderstood the casual vs hardcore thing. The hardcore thing about TRing is not the difficulty: it's the time you put into the game, and the efficiency you TR with. Everyone can level up a TR, not everyone can do it 39 times or even 13 times, and/or in a week per life. That's why hardcore vs casual.
I have also already said that a first lifer can easily be a hardcore player, I know some myself. This is not just about TR vs non-TR, right now casual players (not so geared/skilled/experienced) can run top difficulty content. But it's off topic here.

The people who are doing it in a week are doing so because they're just grinding out the highest exp/minute quests over and over and over, using xp pots, ship buffs, and everything else to trivialize the content to the point that they CAN just blow through it without real risk. That's not "hardcore", sorry. :P They also have the advantage of certain gear that has ridiculously low level requirements (ioun stones and green steel, I'm looking at you). This makes them VASTLY more powerful than other characters of their level.

You put it in a pretty rough way but yes. Although it's hardly my case (I'm more of a casual player really), I am convinced that only the best players should be able to run the hardest content on (epic) ELITE (the rest still has hard, normal, casual, although people seldom need to go below hard), and they should have a proportional reward. If not unique named items (and why not...), at least higher level loot gen, higher drop rate on ingredients, more plat etc...the "plebes" can still achieve that stuff if 1) they gain gear/experience and become "elite" or 2) they run a loot gem, or spend more time on easier difficulties. I think this should be obvious, but I know it's not.

Here's the thing, though. Why should "the best player" be determined by how many times they've TR'd? Once again, you're veering into very dangerous territory of almost REQUIRING people to have to TR if they want to compete.

Let's say you added dungeons where ONLY melee classes could function. Magic just didn't work there. And they had some really nice gear that dropped there. People who play casters would throw a GIANT SCREAMING FIT. With good reason. Similarly, if you added content that ONLY multi-TR characters could hope to compete in, and put the best gear in there, Turbine would tick off a TON of players. This goes against their best interests.

tl;dr:

-Buff the crappy active PLs;

Buff every crappy feat, then.

-Completionist feat autogranted at lv 1;

I still disagree with this. +2 to all stats/skills is a really powerful thing, and SHOULD take up a feat slot. Unless I can get mental toughness, toughness, great fortitude, etc for free when I TR.

-Let us hold as many levels as we like so we can spend more time at low levels if we want to and/or adjust the xp curve a bit;

Adjusting the exp curve would be better. Holding infinite levels would just promote "run this dungeon 500 times to hit 20th", due to how much exp some of them give. Imagine just powering through Von-3, shadow crypt, etc 50 times instead of 10...

-Let us get a 4th and 5th stacking passive PL (+1 SP or even a different effect instead of +2 for wizard, +2 to hit instead of +1 for fighter and so on, basically adjusted so that they not either too good or too bad as some are right now).

Except it's still giving massive bonuses if you stack them up. 5 wizard PLs would be +8 spell pen. Add in 5 fvs and you're looking at +13 spell pen. That's HUGE. Yes, it takes some work to get there, but that vastly overshadows EVERY ED ability that grants spell pen. Hell, it even overshadows THREE FEATS (spell pen, greater spell pen, epic spell pen). All that for an ability you get for free...

FengXian

03-03-2013, 01:40 PM

Silverleafeon

03-03-2013, 02:54 PM

The problem with the past life feats that cost a feat to get is that most
of them are not worth paying a feat for.

What would be nice is if all of these feats were swept into a new tree created
during 2014 labeled "Kurz's Tree". They would no longer be available
to choose as a feat, Passive Past Life feats would remain as is, with a Developer
review at the time to see if any appear weaker than they should be.

It would be a separate tree other than the enhancement tree. You
could earn X enhancement point(s) for each past life you have ever done to spend on it.
You could earn X enhancement point(s) for each epic past life you have ever done to spend on it.

Each would need that past life to unlock it, and each might cost X or XX
enhancement points to take/upgrade it depending upon its power.
There might be a feat spending requirement rarely to unlock more options.
More powerful feats could be broken down, and less powerful would cost less.

There might be Epic Past Life Stuff somewhere in it too.

One could add the descriptive feats in here as well, so those not TRing would
something of interest to choose from should they please. Perhaps the tree
could start with X free enhancement point(s) granted each X level(s).
Descriptive feats are ones such as Stealthy, Athletic, and so forth.

Concerning Epic Destinies power, consider the first five levels of an epic destiny
are available to a level 20 character. Expanding this, perhaps the next epic
destiny levels 6 thru 10 will be available to a level 24 character. If so, the pattern
would continue as such: level 11 thru 15 would be min level 28 ;
level 16 thru 20 would be min level 32 ; level 21 thru 25 would be min level 36 ;
level 26 thru 30 would be min level 40. Yielding a total of 144 epic destiny points to spend.

If my math is wrong and the min levels are 25/30/35/40, it would only yield a total
of 120 epic destiny points to spend.

This will eventually make the 80 action points we get from heroic level look a bit small,
which makes a bit of thought?

While I certainly agree that we do not want to greatly increase the power gap between new
players and long term players, it is nice to give us something to work towards and dream about.
After all uber completionist benefits are being debated here when only 3 players have actually
achieved this.

Fawngate did encounter someone in harbor who was worried about how she might act
as a TR, but they had a good time in Water Works. Being a Completionist to her is about
being the Last Lady Standing. Its about being so strong you can be friendly and flexable
because variety is the spice of life. Its about stepping into a dungeon on elite then summoning
a hire which tells the rest of the group "lets do this!" ~ knowing the heroes will save the day...

At the moment she is enjoying the new content of Update 17 which impresses her very much.
Thank you Devs, and good luck with the future Completionist upgrade.
Looking forward to the enhancement upgrade.

eonfreon

03-03-2013, 03:58 PM

I agree that doubling the benefits would be too much. I also agree some passive PLs like wizard, paladin, ranger are already good.

Monk for example tho: you have 1x monk PL, he has 3, he will have +2 damage. Following my suggestion, nothing would change, except he'd have the option to do 2 other monk lives for another +2 damage. Would that really be too much, considering we have one single item granting +5 atk/damage, FotW granting +6 damage on top of tons of other things, lv 28 incoming and so on?

Also we're talking fanta-DDO here, because there aren't that many 3x completionists, let alone 5x. I think a +5 damage after 5 monk PLs would not be overpowered nor it would lead to more power creep. But just in case there could be other options. For example 4th and 5th monk PL granting +1 to damage while wieldind a ki weapon, or while centered etc...but at least there would be an option for those who want to/can keep TRing.

The reason it might be "too much" is that he would have that bonus that would then stack on top of everything else. The more benefits that are given to TRs the more the game will have to adjust to take that into consideration. The more the game balances with TRs in mind, the more TRing becomes mandatory and not optional. Having +5 damage more than someone else? That's not OP? Really?

Then to be really "hardcore" you will have to TR repeatedly. I fail to see what is "hardcore" about re-running level 1 to 20 content over and over with more and more stat points, passive past life feats, and twinked out gear. It's easier and easier, not harder and harder.

It is not hardcore it is time-consuming. DDO already played out in the manner you describe. TRs were the most powerful characters in terms of raw power. However, now there are Epic Destinies and TR abilities pale in comparison. Turbine had to do it this way to expand their game. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to sell an MMO on the idea that you have to re-level a charater multiple times to be powerful enough to run the most difficult content?

I don't think you'd be very successful at selling the idea that to play the end game a person would have to re-level several times. Although, I have noticed that is close to what Turbine is trying to do. I leveled my character through US ED and had great abilities for a Paladin; 300+ more HP, regenerating Turns for my DM, regenerating LOH, etc. Then to make progress I had to abandon that ED, lose 300+ hp and everything else, and move on to GMOF. Where I can now run 30% faster (which doesn't stack with Striding), +4 to AC, and better Balance. Yeah pretty underwhelming. But that's what I have to do to progress.

Under any suggestions of boosting TR abilities I would have to give up everything and restart so that I could then compete at the highest level. Some people enjoy running the early game over and over. I don't. And I really do fail to see how running early content over and over with more and more power and gear, content that you eventually know like the back of your hand, how does that constitute "hardcore"? It's not harder. By definition, it's easier and easier. Time consuming is the only term that seems to appropriately describe it. Timesink, perhaps?

In my opinion, the game has been "dominated" enough by the TR grind. I'm glad Turbine has finally seen fit to expand the end game. I want them to concentrate their efforts there. And they'll be walk a very thin line if they think they can add more abilities and incentive to keep people running the old content to be able to compete in the new content. Some tweeks I can see. Some of the suggestions seem reasonable. But the abilities have to be weaker than the abilities you can gain at end game, because they stack. And if they stack the game will have to take them into account. Which means that optional playstyle will cease to be optional.

Lyria

03-03-2013, 04:05 PM

PLs are different from other feats because they actually need to be unlocked. Another feat can be nerfed and many players will be upset, but if a PL feat gets nerfed...well that's never gonna happen, because since it takes that long to acquire them Turbine is well aware of how much of an impact a nerf would have on the player base.

Yes, they need to be unlocked. However, once you do, they're permanent. You never lose them by switching EDs. That +2 spell pen for one wizard PL is always going to be there.

But again, since you fail to understand how much difference there is between 30 hp when hp is the main defense (no AC, no dodge, no PRR) and the average hp is 500, and 30 hp when you have a lot more defensive options and the average is 800, then sorry, no point trying to convince you about anything.

No, I don't "fail to understand" it. It simply feels like you're trying to portray "worst case scenarios" for PL feats, and ignoring all the cases where they're NOT worst-case.

P.S.: dodge DOES scale since it will always be 3%. I think you are missing some of the key points here...

And there are more and more abilities and mob powers that can bypass amounts of dodge, so it doesn't "scale" in the same way that other things do.

But yeah, we're pretty much done. We're not going to agree, because you can't seem to see the game from a non-multi-TR perspective, and are focusing purely on wanting your PLs to matter more and give larger benefits to make the end-game even easier, despite people proclaiming that epic elite is ALREADY "too easy". And then you want Turbine to come up with brand new challenges PURELY for multi-TR characters, basically giving the finger to everyone else. Yeah, that's going to happen sometime real soon...

eonfreon

03-03-2013, 04:23 PM

While I certainly agree that we do not want to greatly increase the power gap between new
players and long term players, it is nice to give us something to work towards and dream about.
After all uber completionist benefits are being debated here when only 3 players have actually
achieved this.

Completionist is only one of the debates. Others are talking about granting more power for simply TRing. And basically tailoring the game around it. Giving more power for Past Lives and then creating content to challenge the increased power of having those upgraded past lives.

I think it would be a very bad idea.

TRing should remain an optional distraction in the game. It should not be a focus of the game.

Lyria

03-03-2013, 04:29 PM

And if they stack the game will have to take them into account. Which means that optional playstyle will cease to be optional.

This is the point I keep trying to make, which gets ignored sadly.

The game would have to be balanced around the stacking of these increased PL abilities AND EDs, which means TRing becomes less and less optional, and more mandatory.

And the moment TRing becomes mandatory, you'll have a LOT of really angry customers.

Scraap

03-03-2013, 04:30 PM

It's kind of a pity they went with unique feats instead of auto-granting existing ones at say, 1, 5, and 10, honestly. After all, there's more than one way of growing character power beyond straight up.

Say for the wiz: 1st life as now, 2nd life free spell pen at 5, 3rd one free greater spell pen at 10.

To paraphrase the latest letter: What would you do with 2 free feat slots?

eonfreon

03-03-2013, 04:50 PM

This is the point I keep trying to make, which gets ignored sadly.

The game would have to be balanced around the stacking of these increased PL abilities AND EDs, which means TRing becomes less and less optional, and more mandatory.

And the moment TRing becomes mandatory, you'll have a LOT of really angry customers.

I think a large part of the disagreement is because some people don't really see it as optional to begin with. They forget or joined up later so don't really understand that it was a system tacked on very, very late in the game. It was created when Turbine finally got us to level 20.

It was supposed to be a very minor bonus to encourage us to keep playing the game while Turbine worked on developing the end game. Epics were also created as a way to keep people playing who didn't want to have to re-start just to progress. Along the way people found out, especially casters, that certain past lives contributed a large amount to ease in Epics. Which of course led to all kinds of powercreep and nerfs and constant changes to Epics to account for it. So we alredy have seen when having Past Lives meant a huge deal in Epics. Also, due to the very large xp requirements Turbine had to create more mid to mid-high level quests to accomodate that. Between selling more adventure packs to XP needy players and xp pots, Turbine made anough of a profit that they largely ignored creating more end game. Thus TRing became far more lucrative and accepted than it was initially sold as.

I think Turbine saw the numbers though, after some time. And realized that they couldn't sustain a game where the only way to compete in the "epic" level was to grind out multiple lives. People burned out or balked at the thought of giving up their levels just to do again and progress their characters. But it also created a culture that pretty much expects you to TR. Therefore TR must be the pinnacle of character progress. They need to have a reason to TR.

I find it rather sad that Feng would rather play a Ranger but "can't" because there's no "incentive" to do so. That's a pretty messed up system when people can't play what they like because it would be "pointless" to do so.

Vint

03-03-2013, 04:53 PM

eonfreon

03-03-2013, 04:57 PM

Just an oustiders opinion here, not trolling

When Turbine gives the ability for you to make a new first life toon and max the destinies in a week (ID till your eyes bleed) and be just as good as a 40 life tr, you don't think those people might be upset that all their hard work is down the toilet?

And that's the crux of it. It's now "down the toilet".

All that "hard work" was called "playing a game you enjoy".

How do you sustain a game where to be good you would have to be a "40 life TR"? How would you develop end game content that would require multiple runs of early content to be able to play the end game? How would you get new people interested in it? Or how would you attract back Vets who left because they didn't like the grind in a "grind free game".

Personally I think it's a problem that people have to play any content "till your eyes bleed" to see quick progress. Luckily for me I don't play that way. It'll probably bite me in the posterior later, but I refuse to worry about which quests I should save for when I cap. I like playing the game like a game, not like a job. Turbine needs to fix it's repetition penalty concept. The fact that I'm penalized as well because I had already played GH years and years ago when the level cap was 14, is also a very stupid part of their system.

shadereaper33

03-03-2013, 05:03 PM

Vint

03-03-2013, 05:13 PM

Here is the thing though, that 40 life TR can max all destinies as well, and then he will be just as much better than the first lifer as he was before the epic destiny system. Just because there are new sources of power doesn't mean that the old sources are suddenly irrelevant, people just have more options for how they want to acquire that power. It isn't like you can only TR or do epic destinies, and a lot of people arguing for the buffs to past life feats seem to be forgetting that.

I can understand this and I am not mad that my completionist (in one life) will be marginaly the same as a first lifer. I am not flaming or trolling in this thread.

I am just pointing out that for some (not me), I can understand that they are upset when their 40 life toon is less DPS in a party than a first life Sharadi Sorc.

eonfreon

03-03-2013, 05:17 PM

I can understand this and I am not mad that my completionist (in one life) will be marginaly the same as a first lifer. I am not flaming or trolling in this thread.

I am just pointing out that for some (not me), I can understand that they are upset when their 40 life toon is less DPS in a party than a first life Sharadi Sorc.

I think pretty much everyone is upset about that, except for the shiradi Sorc. But that's because Turbine does such a wonderful job of balancing the abilities that there is always one thing pretty much better than anything else. Just TR as a Sorc and take Shiradi, it's the in thing to do.

Vint

03-03-2013, 05:23 PM

I think pretty much everyone is upset about that, except for the shiradi Sorc. But that's because Turbine does such a wonderful job of balancing the abilities that there is always one thing pretty much better than anything else. Just TR as a Sorc and take Shiradi, it's the in thing to do.

Already made the first lifer:D

For all we know they will nerf Sharadi and make a first life Bard the best thing in the game.

eonfreon

03-03-2013, 05:30 PM

Already made the first lifer:D

For all we know they will nerf Sharadi and make a first life Bard the best thing in the game.

Yep. Nerf and buff. It's the circle of life MMO style. I ran some EE's with my Paladin. Apparently I didn't get the memo that EE is all about kiting nowadays. At one point I actually resorted to my Dwarven Thrower because I got tired of chasing Mobs around. Oh well, luckily there's enough corners to trap Mobs in in a lot of quests.

Lyria

03-03-2013, 06:16 PM

Just an oustiders opinion here, not trolling

When Turbine gives the ability for you to make a new first life toon and max the destinies in a week (ID till your eyes bleed) and be just as good as a 40 life tr, you don't think those people might be upset that all their hard work is down the toilet?

Here's the thing, though.

They don't make all that work go "down the toilet". It's not as though it's all deleted. All those bonuses are still there. And there are a number of them that are superior to anything the EDs can offer (mostly the spell pen). Not to mention that you can get the EDs on TOP of all those past lives, making the character even more powerful.

Unfortunately, what's happening is you have some people (such as the OP) who seem to think that PLs should give them as much (or more) power as EDs do, without realizing that by doing so, and then stacking EDs on TOP of the PL feats, it requires Turbine to have to scale content up even further in order for them to not just breeze through it. By that argument, shouldn't feats ALL be universally buffed up, so they provide huge bonuses too? I mean, toughness gives +23 hp at 20th. That's nothing compared to ED or even PL stuff that can give 30+. Should toughness, then, be bumped up to give 50+ hp by 20th, so it "scales"? What about mental toughness? Spell pen? Spell focus? See where this goes?

If you buff up past lives so that PL feats + EDs force the devs to have to crank the mobs up to even higher levels/power in order to challenge them, it means everyone will be FORCED to TR in order to compete.

And that would be a HUGE mistake on Turbine's part.

THOTHdha

03-03-2013, 09:43 PM

I mean, toughness gives +23 hp at 20th. That's nothing compared to ED or even PL stuff that can give 30+. Should toughness, then, be bumped up to give 50+ hp by 20th, so it "scales"? What about mental toughness? Spell pen? Spell focus? See where this goes?

Except that isn't quite true. Toughness itself gives +23 HP @ 20, but more importantly it gives access to at least another +20 HP through enhancements, +40 HP for most characters very cheaply, and up to even +70 HP if some really want to spend that much. This is why compared to your second suggestion of Mental Toughness, Toughness is nearly universally taken while Mental Toughness is a very weak option.

As to the Spell Penetration and Spell Focus feats that you mentioned, these are all very important. And not so coincidentally, the Past Life bonuses that provide the same thing are pretty close to the only ones of real value in the epic game. However, even with maxing your character out with this additional perk you still only go from a low chance to stick in the hardest EE content, to a moderate chance. Even with debuffing you pretty much move to a reasonably high chance. And if you are going to be that unreliable, then you are going to sink through tons of SP potions just to try to perform that role. Or, as many people have pointed out, you just reroll because the content has made your role irrelevant.

The point that you bring up is absolutely true. Past Life bonuses need to be a perk for players that have gone that extra mile. Meaningful enough that they can see the small difference, but not absolutely necessary to succeed. The problem is that in it's current state of balance, they do not really provide anything at all. The caster ones look amazing on the character sheet, but do not actually translate into anything useful because in top level EE they still do not make you reliable enough to be worth the party slot. The melee ones do not even make enough of a difference to get noticed at all. The defensive ones such as Paladin and Ranger are not too bad, I suppose.

I think that if any kind of reasonable solution is going to be presented, it is going to require a very serious set down and reconsidering of content. And there needs to be a discussion on ways to add challenge to EE content, aside from just super stat inflation. If that means monsters penetrating player's static defenses, such as the much cried over removal of perfect poison resistance, perhaps that is one route. Or if it means new and creative abilities, such as the loop that Drow Necromancers threw people for when they were first encountered, that seems like an even more fun, if probably more developer time consuming idea.

But if the only challenge comes from a build/gear check of "Are your Spell Penetration and Save DCs *this* high?" then the bonuses to those things are going to be seen as necessary. If they give the character just a bit more reliability to their spells, then they seem like a well balanced and practical return on the player's investment of time. But that is going to require a more creative solution to make challenging than just stat inflation. An example could be some mobs with 'still and silent silent spell' feats, able to purge their own debuffs after a short while.

There really isn't any similar save for the Past Lifes such as Monk, though. +1, even +3 damage just turns into absolutely nothing when you are figuring in Epic Destinies. And the +W bonus from the selected feat for monks got nerfed very hard at the same time. It is an extreme disservice to players to make such a change without even any kind of consideration to them. About the only way that I can think of this could be made relevant would be to change it to a percentage, rather than static bonus. If the fraction always rounds up, then even at low levels you will always get at least 1 point of bonus damage, even before you start to deal 100+ damage each swing. And at high levels you will get a small, but meaningful, increase to your damage. *shrug* Not really ideal, but it is at least something.

FengXian

03-03-2013, 10:09 PM

Yes, they need to be unlocked. However, once you do, they're permanent. You never lose them by switching EDs. That +2 spell pen for one wizard PL is always going to be there.

No, I don't "fail to understand" it. It simply feels like you're trying to portray "worst case scenarios" for PL feats, and ignoring all the cases where they're NOT worst-case.

And there are more and more abilities and mob powers that can bypass amounts of dodge, so it doesn't "scale" in the same way that other things do.

But yeah, we're pretty much done. We're not going to agree, because you can't seem to see the game from a non-multi-TR perspective, and are focusing purely on wanting your PLs to matter more and give larger benefits to make the end-game even easier, despite people proclaiming that epic elite is ALREADY "too easy". And then you want Turbine to come up with brand new challenges PURELY for multi-TR characters, basically giving the finger to everyone else. Yeah, that's going to happen sometime real soon...

lol...

1) ACTIVE PLs are not permanent, read more carefully and I won't say you fail to understand.

2) Nice try but no, dodge does scale, anyone will confirm that, but I'm sure you already know.

3) It is you who keep saying you need to be multi-tr in order to do very hard end game content (like the challenges I suggested), but it doesn't make it true. First lifers can run anything right now just as well as a TR'd toon. TRs only open up more possibilities for different kinds of builds.

Like it or not, TRing is a very important part of this game. Turbine knows it as they are giving us epic TR/completionist. Passive past lives are NOT simply a trophy like wings that should have zero impact on gameplay.

If you don't want to grind past lives and other people do, they will be more powerful and it's perfectly ok. Same goes if you don't want to grind gear or twists.

@eonfreon: yeah, +5 damage more than someone else coming from five lives grind is NOT OP. We have gear and destinies providing way higher bonuses, the +3 from monk matters a lot less now than it used to, and a +5 would still matter a lot less than the +3 used to.
If by the time I've acquire my 5 monk PLs you've been grinding gear/EDs you'll be way ahead of me. But if I managed to grind my gear and EDs as well and on top of that I also managed to get 5 monk PLs, I'm pretty darn sure I deserve those +5 damage over you, and no, it's not OP because now people can hit for hundreds on non-crits.
Besides, once again, the idea that passive PLs should only be barely noticeable bonuses is something you guys are very convinced about, but it doesn't mean it's true.

Because you see, it's not like you HAVE TO be on par with the 24/7 players. You can still run end game EE on a first lifer now. But even if you couldn't, it would not be a problem: it would simply mean you are a casual player with not enough time/dedication to grind out past lives. That's what other difficulty settings are for.

I can undestand many of your arguments, but I really can't grasp why you guys feel like casual players should be able to run every quest on every difficulty, and what's the big deal if hardcore crazy PL grinders can do something casuals can't. And don't play the Turbine marketing card on me, I want to know the moral/logical reasons behind it, not the economical ones.

FengXian

03-03-2013, 10:20 PM

Here's the thing, though.

They don't make all that work go "down the toilet". It's not as though it's all deleted. All those bonuses are still there. And there are a number of them that are superior to anything the EDs can offer (mostly the spell pen). Not to mention that you can get the EDs on TOP of all those past lives, making the character even more powerful.

Are you familiar with the idea of relativity?

I.e. if I have 10 dollars in a place where a meal costs 1 dollar, I'll be ok for a few days. But if I have the same 10 dollars in a place where a meal costs 100 dollars, I will end up very very hungry.

You are also exaggerating a lot about how much power creep an extra +2 passive damage would bring. It would be hardly noticeable, really...especially compared to the 3 extra levels (and god know what ED-like abilities) we're getting this summer.

Lyria

03-03-2013, 10:35 PM

lol...

1) ACTIVE PLs are not permanent, read more carefully and I won't say you fail to understand.

Here's your quote that I was replying to:

PLs are different from other feats because they actually need to be unlocked. Another feat can be nerfed and many players will be upset, but if a PL feat gets nerfed...well that's never gonna happen, because since it takes that long to acquire them Turbine is well aware of how much of an impact a nerf would have on the player base.

Show me where it says "active PLs" in there? You said nothing about ACTIVE PL feats. You simply said "PL feats". If you're going to tell other people to "read more carefully", you should TYPE more carefully.

2) Nice try but no, dodge does scale, anyone will confirm that, but I'm sure you already know.

You have a different view of "scaling" than I do, then.

3) It is you who keep saying you need to be multi-tr in order to do very hard end game content (like the challenges I suggested), but it doesn't make it true. First lifers can run anything right now just as well as a TR'd toon. TRs only open up more possibilities for different kinds of builds.

What? Okay, now you're just making stuff up. Nowhere did I say you HAVE to be multi-TR to run epic elite. You can do that on a first-life character. It takes skill and game-knowledge, but even a non-TR character can, provided they're smart and know what the heck they're doing, accomplish it. You said you wanted EVEN HARDER challenges that would nearly force people to have to TR in order to achieve them, with better gear rewards. And now you're saying I'M the one who brought it up?

Like it or not, TRing is a very important part of this game. Turbine knows it as they are giving us epic TR/completionist. Passive past lives are NOT simply a trophy like wings that should have zero impact on gameplay.

Nor should they have a massive impact on the game. That seems to be the fundamental breakdown in the debate.

If you don't want to grind past lives and other people do, they will be more powerful and it's perfectly ok. Same goes if you don't want to grind gear or twists.

Yep. If someone wants to grind out past lives, they'll have extra bonuses. That's perfectly fine. I'm not the one that's suggesting they should get MORE bonuses.

I can undestand many of your arguments, but I really can't grasp why you guys feel like casual players should be able to run every quest on every difficulty, and what's the big deal if hardcore crazy PL grinders can do something casuals can't. And don't play the Turbine marketing card on me, I want to know the moral/logical reasons behind it, not the economical ones.

Stop using the term "casual". There's nothing "hardcore" about TRing. Nor is there anything "casual" about maxing out a first-life character, if you're determined to do it.

If someone puts in the time and effort to max out their character with gear, EDs, consumables, and everything else, why SHOULDN'T they be able to run on the hardest difficulty, if their game-knowledge and skill meets the requirements? Why should TRing be REQUIRED in order to do that? TRing doesn't give you any extra knowledge that others can't obtain. The only thing it gives you is extra bonuses. If those bonuses are the only thing that allows someone to complete certain challenges in the game, it's a fundamental flaw in game-design. Because you're taking an OPTIONAL system and turning it into a REQUIRED system.

Let's say in order to level up as a wizard, you HAD to level up as every other class first. You simply CANNOT start a wizard character unless you've TR'd at least 12 times. Would that be fair? Of course not. People (even TR junkies) would be rather irritated by the meaningless rule.

Because of the fact that there are rewards offered (sometimes meaningful ones, like faction rep) for gaining certain amounts of favor, and the max favor can ONLY be achieved by running on elite, forcing people to have to TR multiple times before they can achieve it is simply a big middle-finger to them.

Put it another way. Let's say they opened up a new dungeon that had special rewards ONLY for first-life characters. TR characters could run it on "TR-hard", but they could NOT run it on "elite". You think there wouldn't be a massive flamewar on the forum over that?

Now think about what you're suggesting in the opposite direction.

eonfreon

03-03-2013, 11:24 PM

lol...

1) ACTIVE PLs are not permanent, read more carefully and I won't say you fail to understand.

2) Nice try but no, dodge does scale, anyone will confirm that, but I'm sure you already know.

3) It is you who keep saying you need to be multi-tr in order to do very hard end game content (like the challenges I suggested), but it doesn't make it true. First lifers can run anything right now just as well as a TR'd toon. TRs only open up more possibilities for different kinds of builds.

Like it or not, TRing is a very important part of this game. Turbine knows it as they are giving us epic TR/completionist. Passive past lives are NOT simply a trophy like wings that should have zero impact on gameplay.

If you don't want to grind past lives and other people do, they will be more powerful and it's perfectly ok. Same goes if you don't want to grind gear or twists.

@eonfreon: yeah, +5 damage more than someone else coming from five lives grind is NOT OP. We have gear and destinies providing way higher bonuses, the +3 from monk matters a lot less now than it used to, and a +5 would still matter a lot less than the +3 used to.
If by the time I've acquire my 5 monk PLs you've been grinding gear/EDs you'll be way ahead of me. But if I managed to grind my gear and EDs as well and on top of that I also managed to get 5 monk PLs, I'm pretty darn sure I deserve those +5 damage over you, and no, it's not OP because now people can hit for hundreds on non-crits.
Besides, once again, the idea that passive PLs should only be barely noticeable bonuses is something you guys are very convinced about, but it doesn't mean it's true.

Because you see, it's not like you HAVE TO be on par with the 24/7 players. You can still run end game EE on a first lifer now. But even if you couldn't, it would not be a problem: it would simply mean you are a casual player with not enough time/dedication to grind out past lives. That's what other difficulty settings are for.

I can undestand many of your arguments, but I really can't grasp why you guys feel like casual players should be able to run every quest on every difficulty, and what's the big deal if hardcore crazy PL grinders can do something casuals can't. And don't play the Turbine marketing card on me, I want to know the moral/logical reasons behind it, not the economical ones.

You're the one who brought up the idea that it wouldn't matter if Turbine amped up past lives because there should be content so hard that it requires it. You at least inferred you. You still do when you say it's okay if a TR can do stuff a non-TR can't. The problem I have is that to me it is precisely what you've labeled it constantly "a TR grind". When it first came out it was sold as an optional feature. Some of the buffs you suggest do sound reasonable, but they are buffs that would be on top of everything else. To see that it wasn't meant to matter much all you have to do is look at the fact that as soon as something new was created that many of you felt that it made all your "hard work irrelevant", meaning you can finally see how small the bonuses really were. They were okay when that was the only thing left to do in DDO, they were an incentive to level up all over again and to grind and keep you busy, but they paled as soon as the game went past level 20. Because now that they are not the only thing left to do they show how weak they really are. Because the game's moved forward finally.

It is a matter of scaling. During a character's leveling up process those bonuses are pretty good. +3 damage from 3xTR Monk vs a first life Monk? Yes, please, I'll take that. However, at level 20 those bonuses do pale. Because they are meant to. We are going past the level 1-20 game that was the province of the multi-TR. I find it hard to believe you don't see that. So if Turbine really wanted to make the past lives significant in relation to Epic power then they would have to buff up past lives significantly. Which they would then have to take into account when they build their content. Which would then make it basically a requirement to TR. Considering the very grindy nature of TRing, it is not something that will appeal to everyone.

You wonder why I would have a problem TRing to be able to compete with buffed up TR abilities? How about the game was never designed that way. You're the ones asking for a buff, I'm not asking for a nerf. See? And there is nothing "hardcore" about multiple TRs in and of itself. They don't even necessarily play more than me. So it has nothing to do with casual vs hardcore. The really casuals couldn't care less. Many casuals won't even bother leveling to 20. They could get to level 20 just as the servers are brought off-line and they'd just shrug.

However, I do care about the game. I'm only casual because the game went in a completely different direction from how it was in the years when I was "hardcore" about it. I saw the end game completely get ignored and stagnate. The grind of TRing became the lucrative venture that Turbine began to cater to with xp pots and elite unlocks and such. Old Epics were a joke in the way Turbine buffed and nerfed them constantly and the drop rates were horrid.

Small buffs to some past lives to placate the ones who feel their time was wasted (how can that be- you were playing a game right, and it was the only game in this town at the time you played it) I can support. Or at least I won't care one way or the other. However, as soon as you start talking about how it should represent a significant amount of a character's power, then I will oppose that idea. Remember you're the ones asking for a buff, I'm not asking for a nerf at all.

Currently it is indeed far less significant when compared to EDs. I think it should remain that way. I am against your notion that it is okay that to play the highest difficulty of the game that I should engage in a very grindy aspect of it to "grow" my power. I know I'm not the only one. I spent quite a bit of time in this game over the years, probably more than some TRs (heck way more in some cases since all it takes to be a "TR" is get to level 20 and start over), so the argument that they spend more time can be really debated. That's my logic.

And in the end it is based on economics. I simply will not pay to play such a game. I will cdertainly dabble at it since I wouldn't have any monetary investment in it, but I wouldn't care for such a game and I would move on again. Now Turbine couldn't care less about what I want to see the game play like, but they do care about getting my money.

eonfreon

03-03-2013, 11:50 PM

One other point. If someone doesn't want to engage in end game and prefers to TR and replay the content they can and EDs will have zero effect on them and the content they play in. Because EDs are only activated at level 20, thus they have zero impact on any content run before that.

However, if past lives are boosted too significantly, they can have a very good chance of impacting the content that is developed at end game. I hope that Epic TRs are not as grindy as the Heroic TRs.

This is a personal plea to the Devs. Don't try to prolong your endgame with some arbitrary grind. Develop new content, don't keep re-cycling so much. If you do keep upgrading old content and selling it as new, at least revisisit the repetition penalties. This cannibalizing from the old game to feed the new game will eventually kill your game. As you make your customers have to decide whether they want to play the content they have at lower levels or save it for higher levels I for one am sure you will make a lot of customers get fed up.

RobbinB

03-04-2013, 05:43 AM

Yep. Nerf and buff. It's the circle of life MMO style. I ran some EE's with my Paladin. Apparently I didn't get the memo that EE is all about kiting nowadays. At one point I actually resorted to my Dwarven Thrower because I got tired of chasing Mobs around. Oh well, luckily there's enough corners to trap Mobs in in a lot of quests.

Nerf and buff cycle would be A-okay if Turbine kept it simple to change your character to keep up. Why they feel the need to make it super-complicated is beyond me. The feat respect, the rez system, epic destinies, none are setup in a straight-forward matter.

I would never complain if at anytime I could say "yeah, not enjoying this male drow sorcerer anymore (for whatever reason). I think I'll make him into a female halfling cleric." Really, I should be able to take 20 min to do that and be back to playing. It's called having fun. Why all the artificial roadblocks Turbine always sets up is beyond me. "OMG if he pulled a torc on his barbarian and therefore converted it into a caster what would happen? The world could end..."

FengXian

03-04-2013, 06:07 AM

Show me where it says "active PLs" in there? You said nothing about ACTIVE PL feats. You simply said "PL feats". If you're going to tell other people to "read more carefully", you should TYPE more carefully.

Here you go:

And again, active PLs do take a feat slot, they are not free and they should be adressed since some really, really suck.

So do a lot of feats. By that logic they should go over every feat in the game.

PLs are different from other feats because they actually need to be unlocked. Another feat can be nerfed and many players will be upset, but if a PL feat gets nerfed...well that's never gonna happen, because since it takes that long to acquire them Turbine is well aware of how much of an impact a nerf would have on the player base.

Yes, they need to be unlocked. However, once you do, they're permanent. You never lose them by switching EDs. That +2 spell pen for one wizard PL is always going to be there.

More importantly tho:

This is the point I keep trying to make, which gets ignored sadly.

The game would have to be balanced around the stacking of these increased PL abilities AND EDs, which means TRing becomes less and less optional, and more mandatory.

And the moment TRing becomes mandatory, you'll have a LOT of really angry customers.

At this point, you guys are just strawmanning (yes, eonfreon too since he's saying the same). Past lives becoming mandatory if slightly buffed, or should I say balanced, is your assumption and it has nothing to back it up.

Past lives are there to make the game easier to the people who get them. Which means they will complete EE more easily, not that they will be the only ones entitled to do so.

I did say that if that happened (only multi-trs being able to run some content) it wouldn't even be too wrong, but I also said it's not gonna happen anyway.

Don't mix things up: hardcore (elite, w/e term you prefer) is different from multi-tr. A "elite" player will have great gear, a great build, great player skill and experience. It can very well be a first life toon, (a barb or a sorc doesn't even need 36 points so yeah...). And the top difficulty should be balanced around such players. Past lives are something that will make such end game easier for such players, NOT the thing end game would be balanced around. Top difficulty can and should be balanced around top 10% players (the "hardcore ones"), not top <1% (the 3x completionist ones).

I don't think you've done this on purpose but you've kinda twisted the original argument into a slightly different version (TR=required and content balanced around completionists/multi-trs) and then argued against such straw man.

-------------------------------------

tl;dr: there is no risk end game would be balanced around multi-trs, completionists and such, being a multi-tr would simply make end game easier.

-there aren't enough completionists/3x completionists to influence game balance that much
-past lives, even if slightly buffed/fixed, would never be able to influence a character's power enough compared to heroic build, gear, EDs, player skill and experience. Heck even ship buffs are more useful (and not just the resists)...

danzig138

03-04-2013, 09:01 AM

No. Terrible idea.

Silverleafeon

03-04-2013, 09:07 AM

Heck even ship buffs are more useful (and not just the resists)...
Aye anyone with a large guild airship get the completionist feat for free on a 60 min timer,
yet Fawngate in her small guild has to pay for it. This is something we have to consider.
Her three ranger past lives plus the guilds 20 resist shines and a +5 resists armor
equal what most guilds get for free on a 60 min timer. All this will change in due time.

Fawn wants acknowledgement that she has done something significant,
without greatly overshadowing players that do not have the time that she is blessed with.

Its important to be careful that the past live goodies don't start taking away from our toons
due to their costs. Very often, she ponders when and where to take the completionist
feat that she worked so hard to obtain. She had to soul search deeply to decide to commit
to a small guild even though it canceled out her hard earned goodies.

The original proposition of creating a second completionist feat is something Fawn is highly
opposed to as she can hardly find room for the first.

The proposal of making more than three passive past life feats stack, she also opposes
as it opens up too much grind. Let us have something new instead. Give me this Epic
whatever stuff.

She can speak as she is on her 25th life, and even to her Uber Completionist feels
very far away. Have you any concept of how very difficult this is to do?
I helped Cloey with quite a few of her later lives. I gave Hordo rezes, and thanked
Gunga for his kindness. Its an adventure never to be forgotten.

Devs, go ask her if she wants to do another 26 lives on Cloey, before you do this...

A review of what we currently have would be nice someday as it is somewhat unequal.
A new system of the current purchased PL feats would be nice when the epic stuff is introduced.
Both could be done at the same time.

.

eonfreon

03-04-2013, 12:02 PM

At this point, you guys are just strawmanning (yes, eonfreon too since he's saying the same). Past lives becoming mandatory if slightly buffed, or should I say balanced, is your assumption and it has nothing to back it up.

Past lives are there to make the game easier to the people who get them. Which means they will complete EE more easily, not that they will be the only ones entitled to do so.

I did say that if that happened (only multi-trs being able to run some content) it wouldn't even be too wrong, but I also said it's not gonna happen anyway.

Don't mix things up: hardcore (elite, w/e term you prefer) is different from multi-tr. A "elite" player will have great gear, a great build, great player skill and experience. It can very well be a first life toon, (a barb or a sorc doesn't even need 36 points so yeah...). And the top difficulty should be balanced around such players. Past lives are something that will make such end game easier for such players, NOT the thing end game would be balanced around. Top difficulty can and should be balanced around top 10% players (the "hardcore ones"), not top <1% (the 3x completionist ones).

I don't think you've done this on purpose but you've kinda twisted the original argument into a slightly different version (TR=required and content balanced around completionists/multi-trs) and then argued against such straw man.

-------------------------------------

tl;dr: there is no risk end game would be balanced around multi-trs, completionists and such, being a multi-tr would simply make end game easier.

-there aren't enough completionists/3x completionists to influence game balance that much
-past lives, even if slightly buffed/fixed, would never be able to influence a character's power enough compared to heroic build, gear, EDs, player skill and experience. Heck even ship buffs are more useful (and not just the resists)...

You asked for my opinion and then you call it a strawman? I've already said I wouldn't be against some small increase in TR past lives, or more correctly I wouldn't care so long as it had zero impact on me. But you yourself have not stuck to just that. You've gone on to say that it would be fine IF TR was necessary and I've gone on to point out why I'm against it.

The OP talked about completionist/3x completionist, you've talked about other stuff. You wanted to have it extended in different ways. You want to be able to go to 5 past lives. Having 5 past lives instead of 3 be the maximum has little to do with Completionist unless you're saying that you would only be able to extend the maximum if you already did a Completionist? Like I said I don't think any of your suggestions would be bad. I just don't think they are necessary. The game has moved on. We'll see what Epic TR entails. I cringe at the thought but perhaps it won't be akin to the incredibly inane grind that Heroic TR is.

You knew when you started TRing what the rewards were. You were fine with them until the new thing showed up. Now you want more bonuses to keep doing what you enjoy. Nothing wrong with that. But you knew what you were getting into. You knew what the past life feats were, both passive and active.

As far as your "strawman"; you can't throw around the idea that TR is an integral part of DDO and that there would be nothing wrong with the hypothetical idea that TRing be required to do the hardest levels of end game and then not expect to get opposing views from someone who doesn't agree. TR only became what it is because the Devs took forever to add new endgame content. Thus TRing has now become the norm. How long ago was the level cap raised to 20? How many end game quests were specifically built since that level cap that languished forever? Not many. IQ maybe? I don't count recycled old content as "new end game content". Adding an "Epic option" to Heroic quests was fine for a bit but it looks very cheap overall.

And don't tell me that past lives don't already have an effect on end game. It's had a very negative effect for CC casters. Due to the stacking nature of those past lives they have a large advantage compared to a first life. So if Turbine wanted EE to be a challenge to a TR caster they would have to raise the DCs and Spell Resist to the point that a First Life Caster might as well just forget it. But that wouldn't be fair or fun for a First Life Caster who had to purchase the EDs just like everyone else. So what does Turbine do? They make it so that no one can apply CC. Just forget it no matter how many past lives or gear you have. Just go into Shiradi and be done with it.

Let's look at Fighters. A +3 to tactics = a 15% increase that you can't get anywhere else. That's not a small number. You're concentrating on the ones that don't have an impact, but there are already those that do. Yes, Turbine can pick and choose and buff up the worst ones, but they have a poor track history of doing anything really sensibly. Be careful that they don't just figure the way to narrow the gap is to put everything on the "diminishing returns chart".

If TRing was something that was part of DDO since it's inception I wouldn't have any real problem with it. However, I doubt I would have given DDO much of my time. The idea that one has to restart just to progress is asinine. Especially when they expect people to purchase EDs to progress as well. So, no TR was not an important part of the game. It may be an important part to you but that doesn't make it so to everyone else. You've used the term "grind" for it to support that you've done something "hard". How is it a grind if you enjoyed doing it? An enjoyable grind is what we play games for. Unenjoyable grinds are the ones we try to avoid. If you enjoyed doing it then it wasn't a waste of your time. If you didn't enjoy it then you shouldn't have done it.

So as far as "twisting" the argument and arguing against that strawman, I did no such thing. You wanted to know why I don't think it's okay IF TR ever became necessary and I told you. You said you see no real problem. I said I do. Like I said if TR had been part of DDO since the beginning it would be one thing. It wasn't. It was tacked on later, with no real precedence. Turbine took our complaints about having to reroll to take advantage of earning 32 pt builds and turned it into a grind to keep people busy while thay dealt with whatever corporate restructuring they had to.

DDO's respec system is pretty terrible as someone else pointed out. Too convoluted and complicated. And as bad as things are now, they were far worst before. Imagine when they came out with Tempest, a PRE that required 3 prereqs that hardy anybody used, especially on a Ranger. Imagine trying to adjust an old Ranger to be able to take a PRE when the only way to change out Feats was through Fred. LRs didn't even exist, but even if they did, it would've been pretty shady to introduce a PRE that required you to pay to be able to convert into. But that's what Turbine is doing, constantly.

As far as "hardcore elite players"; I've played with many since I've been back in EE content. I've seen what they've built to make a mockery of EE. It's hardly "genius" material. They've even told me how to convert my own character into a similar build. I may or I may not. EE isn't such a blast that I feel I have to remake my character just to be able to trivialize it. I enjoy a challenge. That's why I don't like TRing. It takes all the challenge out of the game to go back and redo the level 1-20 content with a progressively more powerful character. There's nothing hard about TRing. I don't feel it deserves anything special just because it can be time consuming. By definition it's easier and easier as you do it over and over. If you really want to see real hardcore players go play with some PD players. That's hardcore. It's not hardcore to pile OP gear on and remake a character completely that is best for a particular update. That's just metagaming.

FengXian

03-04-2013, 12:39 PM

You've gone on to say that it would be fine IF TR was necessary and I've gone on to point out why I'm against it.

If this bothers you so much disregard it, it's not happening anyway, and I'm not asking for this, I say I simply wouldn't mind if it actually happened, I'd just settle down for a little easier than top content.

The game has moved on. We'll see what Epic TR entails. I cringe at the thought but perhaps it won't be akin to the incredibly inane grind that Heroic TR is.

Well yeah, for what we know now epic TRs could be very similar to the buffs I suggested to regular TRs. I don't care in what shape they come...I do care about having a reason to replay low levels tho...so we'll see.

You're concentrating on the ones that don't have an impact, but there are already those that do. Yes, Turbine can pick and choose and buff up the worst ones, but they have a poor track history of doing anything really sensibly. Be careful that they don't just figure the way to narrow the gap is to put everything on the "diminishing returns chart".

So you basically agree about the bad ones being buffable. About how Turbines handles stuff...well if we had to consider that, we'd never ever make any kind of suggestion again I guess...(j/k, well, partially).

So as far as "twisting" the argument and arguing against that strawman, I did no such thing. You wanted to know why I don't think it's okay IF TR ever became necessary and I told you. You said you see no real problem. I said I do. Like I said if TR had been part of DDO since the beginning it would be one thing.

Alright, so it was only hypotetical speech about TRs becoming required if 5x etc went live, I misunderstood. Anyway, TRs are a big part of DDO right now.

I agree end game is very important, but the option to TR and replay low levels should always stay viable. Maybe add 1 low level update every 4?

I am worried because I see how with lv 15 veteran builds being introduces and PLs losing importance, <15 content will slowly die. It's not just because I like, it's also because the new players who start at lv 1 will have a harder time, and also because given the grindy and time consuming nature of past lives' acquisition, their impact on a build should be kept as constant as possible. I understand they're still as good as they used to be in the 1-20 lv range, but if you have little reason to play 1-20 because you can either start at 15 or skip 8-16 via xp stone?

As far as "hardcore elite players"; I've played with many since I've been back in EE content. I've seen what they've built to make a mockery of EE. It's hardly "genius" material. They've even told me how to convert my own character into a similar build. I may or I may not. EE isn't such a blast that I feel I have to remake my character just to be able to trivialize it. I enjoy a challenge. That's why I don't like TRing. It takes all the challenge out of the game to go back and redo the level 1-20 content with a progressively more powerful character. There's nothing hard about TRing. I don't feel it deserves anything special just because it can be time consuming. By definition it's easier and easier as you do it over and over. If you really want to see real hardcore players go play with some PD players. That's hardcore. It's not hardcore to pile OP gear on and remake a character completely that is best for a particular update. That's just metagaming.

I agree about the metagaming part. Meta is important: you'll definitely want gear, and even some build aspects according to end game meta (ranged FE for example: it would be dumb to complain how EO is not as good as it used to be in end game, you have to adapt at least a bit).

But it's not true that there are only a handful of builds viable for end game as some have been claiming for a while now all around the forums. Most classic builds are viable. Even a tempest can be viable. And you can always come up with an original combination that is still good. Of course the more you can fit in in your build among defense, offense, self sufficiency, the better. I realize some people just take the "top" build from the forums and tear through content.

I don't think Haek is happy about so many people having just copied his build, and I think he was a bit reluctant to post it at first.

Big digression...long story short, you're right, we should wait for more info about the new expansion mechanisms, then we can resume I guess :)

eonfreon

03-04-2013, 01:21 PM

So you basically agree about the bad ones being buffable. About how Turbines handles stuff...well if we had to consider that, we'd never ever make any kind of suggestion again I guess...(j/k, well, partially).

Yes, I've agreed to that from the get-go. I just pointed out that it would be a fine line, that it would have to not be seen as a "must have". And I wasn't just arguing with you, I was also arguing with the premise of the OP, that if it isn't buffed significantly then it was a waste of time to do it.

He got what he played for. He knew what he was getting from it. He couldn't know what would happen as the game progressed, but then no one can. By his logic since I rerolled and played various characters when DDO was new I wasted all that time because if I had only waited I could have been TRing instead of rerolling. So it's silly to think that time was wasted because a new system is put in place. It didn't exist. You can only play the game that exists.

Alright, so it was only hypotetical speech about TRs becoming required if 5x etc went live, I misunderstood. Anyway, TRs are a big part of DDO right now.

I agree end game is very important, but the option to TR and replay low levels should always stay viable. Maybe add 1 low level update every 4?

I am worried because I see how with lv 15 veteran builds being introduces and PLs losing importance, <15 content will slowly die. It's not just because I like, it's also because the new players who start at lv 1 will have a harder time, and also because given the grindy and time consuming nature of past lives' acquisition, their impact on a build should be kept as constant as possible. I understand they're still as good as they used to be in the 1-20 lv range, but if you have little reason to play 1-20 because you can either start at 15 or skip 8-16 via xp stone?

Well, for one thing the level 15+ is the point where more content is needed. I remember I gave up on my TR at level 17. I didn't play it carefully, I played it as I had always played the game and it started to get incredibly repetitious at around level 15.

And for another, there will always be plenty of Vets at all levels. Plus new players don't really need Vets to teach them how to play. While DDO is complicated it isn't incredibly hard. All it takes is the same common sense gameplay that any MMO pretty much has. Stock up on whatever consumables you can, take stock of the situations before charging in and see what methods can mitigate damage. Even at it's most brutal level, DDO was not hard to master. And I didn't come from any MMO background except FPS like Battlefield. Games like Everquest looked cool to me because I liked the concept of persistent world that harked back to my fantasy role-playing days, but the gameplay itself bored the heck out of me, especially when it got to the level of having to dedicate x hours of playtime a week to belong to the most hardcore Guilds. I didn't play the game but I watched over my roommate's shoulder. The grind and gameplay were boring looking. Then he discovered DDO and that was a lot more fun.

But new players don't really need Vets to show them the ropes until much later in the game. And if they are concerned about making top-notch builds they can always use the forums.

I agree about the metagaming part. Meta is important: you'll definitely want gear, and even some build aspects according to end game meta (ranged FE for example: it would be dumb to complain how EO is not as good as it used to be in end game, you have to adapt at least a bit).

But it's not true that there are only a handful of builds viable for end game as some have been claiming for a while now all around the forums. Most classic builds are viable. Even a tempest can be viable. And you can always come up with an original combination that is still good. Of course the more you can fit in in your build among defense, offense, self sufficiency, the better. I realize some people just take the "top" build from the forums and tear through content.

I don't think Haek is happy about so many people having just copied his build, and I think he was a bit reluctant to post it at first.

Big digression...long story short, you're right, we should wait for more info about the new expansion mechanisms, then we can resume I guess :)

Yes, there are more builds viable than is claimed. However, there are only a few very specific builds that absolutely make a mockery of EE. I've managed already to make my Paladin into more than just a piking observor. However, to "compete" with the top builds I would have to completely remake my character yet again. Luckily I wouldn't need to TR since my particular build has 12 Feats + 2 Epic Feats (he's a Paladin mutt, but 16 levels of Paladin does qualify him as a Paladin). So I have the leeway required to make my own version of what's best. But I would completely change the theme of my character and that's a problem for me. But that's nothing unusual. Turbine doesn't understand it's own game too well. They have a tendency to allow unintended synergies to dominate the game. They'll eventually get wind of it and they'll either swing the nerfbat or they'll design new content that makes those builds and tactics less viable, which will keep the hamster wheel of the "hardcore" who will drop everything to create a character build that will dominate the next update.

The rest of us hope we can just play the game with characters that shouldn't have to be constantly remade, especially with the complicated and expensive respec system. But nothing will ever compare to trying to turn a regular Ranger into a Tempest way back when Fred was the only way to do it; three Feats were needed. Pretty harsh.

As for the rest; of course I have no problem with people wanting more reasons to do what they like. That's part and parcel of human nature. I just want it to be done carefully so that the parts I don't enjoy don't impact me too much because I abstain from playing it. It's been so long since I TRed and so many new sources of XP have indeed been put in the game that I doubt it's nearly as bad as it was when first did it and swore it was the stupidest thing ever created for the game. I had a bad experience because Turbine raised the XP requirements but didn't raise the xp in-game at the time. It's better now so I doubt I'd hate itas much. Since I haven't dont CO6 and all that jazz in a long time I actually might get into it agin some day. But I don't want it to be the focus of the game that it had seemed to become. The game was not built with it. I know it wasn't built with Epic either, but at least Epic continues the progression upwards which was how DDO was initially built. We had updates and level raises. We didn't have TRs and Recycled quests labeled "Epic".

I can see why Turbine focused there for a while. It was lucrative selling xp pots to people that were getting tired of grinding the same quests over and over. And they even did release new low level quests. As usual they generally missed the mark, making more content at the level range that most people had no problem leveling through and ignoring the level range that people were struggling to level through. Who knows what their thinking is.

So yes, mine was a hypothetical speech explaining why I disliked your hypothetical idea that it would be fine if TRing became even more than it was now and even if it became a new meaasure for what you "needed" to do to do high end content. I especially disagreed with your notion that it's fine if people don't want to do (should it be "required" for optimization) as long as they are content to play at any level below Elite. That rankles me, because TRing was supposed to be an optional way to play, a way to take a break from end game, not a major part of the game in and of itself. You brought up the fact that TRing took "work" and "time". Yes, so did the parts of the game I played. There was no guarantee that a person who TRs spends more time than me. And I find it funny to think of going back to do level 1-20 with a more powerful character and armed with gear and knowledge and having anything be "hard".

So, yes, we'll just have to wait and see. Personally, I just used this thread as a sounding board. I wanted to present what I saw as flaws of the TR system. It should never have been a grind. If it hadn't been such a grind then greater power could be justifiable, because more people would want to do it. But I think it's pretty obvious by the very nature of those underwhelming past life feats that it was designed to be something you could do to take a break from end game, but not something that was supposed to have too much impact on end game.

I disliked the grindy nature of Tring but I liked the fact that there is no real need to participate in it. I hope Turbine has some real vision for Epic TRing and it's not just a new grind. Let's hope they at least learned the lesson that it's not a good idea to require larger and larger amounts of xp before actually putting that xp in the game. If it just becomes another ploy to sell more xp pots... then later DDO.

But I have hope. Maybe they'll put together a system that doesn't make you restart just to move forward.

Silverleafeon

03-04-2013, 01:35 PM

This may sound crazy to some, I would offer a comprise to the Developers.

Please give every character ever created the toughness feat as auto grant feat at first level.

This would help the Completionist characters in three ways:

1) It gives us room to take our Completionist Feat.

2) The next time we meet an new player, we don't have to reply,
"Have you taken the toughness feat." after we have won their respect and
they are looking for a bit of advice. It gets a little old eventually.

3) It gives everyone a goodie, not just those who TR.

Variety is the spice of life.
Toughness as a feat is boring.
Almost every toon that reaches 25 sooner or later takes Toughness or the
Barbarian purchasable past life feat.

{I'll grant that a few people can make impressive page after page arguments
about why Toughness is not a must have feat, but the rest of us like to have
those extra 43 to 73+ hit points cause it sure helps sometimes...}

FengXian

03-04-2013, 01:53 PM

I'll select just this, little time to reply atm:

However, to "compete" with the top builds I would have to completely remake my character yet again. Luckily I wouldn't need to TR since my particular build has 12 Feats + 2 Epic Feats (he's a Paladin mutt, but 16 levels of Paladin does qualify him as a Paladin). So I have the leeway required to make my own version of what's best. But I would completely change the theme of my character and that's a problem for me.

If having to change your character theme in order to compete with the best is a problem for you, we'll never agree on this.

Meta is in constant evolution. If you had a KotC when devils where THE end game, you would have been upset by the change, by this logic. If you want to compete with the best (and not just complete content) in end game, there's a good chance you'll have to redo or at least modify your toon every time new end game content is released.

I very likely missed something because this sounds too wrong :P As I said, not enough time now, I'll read more carefully later.

wolfy42

03-04-2013, 02:02 PM

I'm sorry but I think this idea is wacked.

Seriously the diff between TR chars and non-TR chars are already huge. The content is already cake for the most part, for completionists. Yes, ED are a huge bump and that does to some extent reduce how much of a difference past life passive bonuses make, but it's still a pretty freaking large bonus, especially adding them all up.

Lets list the bonuses really quick:

30 bonus max hp
+3 to attack
+3 to tacticle DCs
+15% healing amp
+6 to ranged damage
+6 to all elemental resistances
+6 to saves vs traps
+3 to SA damage
+120 spell points
+3 to damage rolls
+9 to spell penetration
+3 to int based skills
+6 to summons stats
+? to a variety of school DCs (not gonna break em down)

Those are all free passive bonuses without using feats at all.

I would say making completionist a passive bonus though (not needing a feat) would make sense at this point. The +2 to all stats isn't a huge advantage...and shouldn't take up a feat anymore.

Increasing the bonuses though any more seems crazy. The diff between a character with all that, and a new character is huge. Add in the Equipment differences (which are probably even greater) and new characters (or even characters on their second or third life) are going to feel very underpowered.

Silverleafeon

03-04-2013, 02:07 PM

FengXian

03-04-2013, 02:12 PM

Increasing the bonuses though any more seems crazy. The diff between a character with all that, and a new character is huge. Add in the Equipment differences (which are probably even greater) and new characters (or even characters on their second or third life) are going to feel very underpowered.

Ok, but you realize that

1) no character actually makes use of all of those at the same time,

2) those require 3x in every past life and

3) the difference is not as huge as you might think. It's actually pretty small, the only thing that changes a lot is spell pen. And it will be even smaller with the upcoming expansion...

Also, new characters are supposed to BE underpowered compared to people that have been around for years, since you are also taking gear into account. And they will still be able to run basically everything up to Epic Hard...

This is not even a PvP game, what exactly is the problem with new people feeling underpowered, are they all kids or something? O_o No matter how hard I try I can't understand what can possibly seem strange/unfair to a grown up about being WEAK when he joins a new game, and not even compared to content, just as opposed to veteran players. It's like this everywhere but here... Here it will take you 2-4 months to cap and gather enough EDs/gear to be able to challenge the hardest content in the game, provided you are an average learner and have -some- time to play

Silverleafeon

03-04-2013, 02:22 PM

I agree that the Devs should look and think about the Passive feat bonuses as a review.
Doubling all of them would be a huge mistake.

Instead of increasing the passive bonus, I would rather see something like~
earn points for each past life; each past life feat that is purchasable can be
earned for 2 past life points.

Something like that.

Silverleafeon

03-04-2013, 02:40 PM

Lets pretend.

Fawngate is on her 25th life, a Paladin Tank, which grants her 24 life points.

She will spend her life points thus:

2 points for:
You recall more about your past life as a barbarian. You gain +20 hit points, have +2 to your Intimidate skill and can enter a barbarian rage one additional time per rest, and enter a basic rage once per rest even if you do not have any other rage abilities. (Activate this barbarian ability to enter a bloodthirsty frenzy, granting you a +4 bonus to Strength and Constitution, a +2 Morale bonus to Will saves, and a -2 penalty to AC. When the rage ends, however, you will lose the hit points granted to you by increased Constitution and become fatigued. Your rage will last for 30 seconds.) This feat grants access to Racial and Class Toughness enhancements.

5 points for:
You win DDO! You've leveled to 20 in every class, and for your effort can take this feat to get a +2 bonus to all skills and ability scores. When more classes are added, this feat will deactivate and you will need to gain those past lives before this benefit reactivates.

2 points for:
You recall more about your past life as a fighter. You have +2 to your Intimidate skill, +1 to the Maximum Dexterity Bonus of armor and shields, and can remember your martial prowess three times per rest, increasing your base attack bonus to your level and granting +4 to hit.

2 points for:
You recall more about your past life as a ranger. You have +2 to your Spot skill and can produce a Barkskin effect three times per rest. (Activate this ranger ability to toughen the skin of an ally, giving a +2 natural armor bonus to AC with an additional +1 bonus for every 3 caster levels above 3rd, to a maximum of +5 at caster level 12th.)

2 points for:
You recall more about your past life as a rogue. You have +1 to all skills and three times per rest you can skulk with the skill of your past life, gaining bonuses equal to your level to your hide and move silently skills, a +1 bonus to sneak attack damage for every two character levels, and a +1 bonus to hit with sneak attacks for every four levels. Note: 1 minute per use.

2 points for:
You recall more about your past life as a druid. You have +2 to all elemental resistances and can cast the flame blade spell three times per rest, which summons a scimitar of fire that does fire damage instead of slashing damage, and uses the wielder's Wisdom instead of Strength for determining attack and damage bonuses. You can choose to summon one or two scimitars, and the swords are automatically equipped when created. At caster level 1, it has a +1 enhancement bonus and the flaming effect. Every five caster levels the summoned swords improve.

2 points for:
You recall more about your past life as a sorcerer. Your maximum spell points are increased by 10 at first level, and 5 spell points for each additional level and can produce random elemental damage spells ten times per rest. (Activate this sorcerer ability to blast a target with a ray of combined elements, doing 1d12 damage of a random elemental type plus an additional 1d12 per three caster levels on impact. A successful Reflex save reduce the damage by half.)

2 points for:
You recall more about your past life as a bard. You have +1 to all Charisma based skills, +1 to the DC's of your Enchantment spells, and can Inspire Courage three times per rest. (Activate this bard ability to rally your companions, giving them a +1 morale bonus to saves against fear effects and a +1 morale bonus on attack and weapon damage rolls before enhancements.)

2 points for:
You recall more about your past life as a cleric. You have +2 to your Heal skill, and can produce a Healing Word effect five times per rest. Positive energy is channeled to heal light wounds of your target or damage undead for 1d4 hit points plus an additional 1d4 per two caster levels. Undead who make a successful Will save reduce the damage by half.

2 points for:
You recall more about your past life as an artificer. When you use a rod, staff, or wand, you have a 15% chance to retain essence and not expend a charge, and can produce an Enchant Armor or Enchant Weapons effect a total of ten times per rest. (Activate this artificer ability to increase the Enhancement Bonus of your target's currently equipped weapons or shields by 1, or to increase the Enhancement Bonus of your target's currently equipped armor by 1. An item can have only one temporary item enchantment at a time.)

1 point unspent

SableShadow

03-04-2013, 02:42 PM

Annoying mechanic is annoying.

A system in which the primary challenges are xp/min, twink gear, and managing bank space while mechanically running content that was already run to death over many, many updates should not be granted even more influence on the game than it has already.

eonfreon

03-04-2013, 02:45 PM

I'll select just this, little time to reply atm:

If having to change your character theme in order to compete with the best is a problem for you, we'll never agree on this.

Meta is in constant evolution. If you had a KotC when devils where THE end game, you would have been upset by the change, by this logic. If you want to compete with the best (and not just complete content) in end game, there's a good chance you'll have to redo or at least modify your toon every time new end game content is released.

I very likely missed something because this sounds too wrong :P As I said, not enough time now, I'll read more carefully later.

My only problem is if I have to reset Feats every single time. They are not free resets. Having to change out of KotC is one thing. Having to fit in archery Feats so that my Paladin can take advantage of the Shiradi kitefest is quite another.

The problem with DDO is that is becomes too quickly about the Flavor of the Month. How did it make sense that Tempest was introduced that required three Feats that hardly anybody took?

If I had to TR my Paladin build that I've had since the level cap was 16 just so that I can "compete" with every Flavor of the Month that would just be stupid. Especially if I had to TR him into some other class. That's just too far.

Maybe since you've been playing when TR was basically the only game left in DDO you don't see that as a problem. But I do. The fact that you can't play a Ranger on your TR any more because it would be "pointless" to do so is also a problem in my book. You keep thinking that TRs are a major part of the game or something. That it's "the" way to adapt to the changing game. They were not touted as such. TRs were not sold as a way to deal with every buff and nerf to the game. They were an optional thing to do if you got bored waiting for Turbine to finally develop new content. They weren't supposed to be a substitute for end game, just something else to do, instead of rerolling you could keep all your tomes raid gear intact. But I think the overall underwhelming nature of the rewards points exactly to what I said. They were not supposed to be a major or important part of a character's build. They were supposed to be able to be ignored for the most part. I think the lucrative venture of selling xp pots to compensate for the arbitrary xp penalty built into the TRs is what allowed them to get attention from the Devs. And very little attention at that. All they did was keep from developing end game content. And as soon as they did, they made it quite apparent that TRing was not the focus.

Turbine didn't want people who reran the content over and over as TRs to gain such significant power as to make it mandatory to do so. Can you imagine trying to sell a new player on the notion that upon reaching level 20 the right thing to do is to restart all over again. The bonus is you get to keep what your character already has and get some neat little perks. The downside is that you have an xp "penalty" built right in. Everything about TRs screams "distraction", but little says "important". And they want people to buy the EDs now and keep leveling. You can't sell EDs if you tell people that the only way to play the EDs to the max would be to also TR and replay the game.

Yes I am getting more used to Turbine flipping and flopping. Today archery will be top dog, tomorrow it'll probably suck. Just like TWF and THF. You really think it makes sense that Turbine decided to add mostly only things for THF? That everyone who built for TWF should now just rebuild for THF?

I don't really care in the long run. The game is only fun enough to play. It isn't fun enough to make me absolutely feel like I have to play the respec game to be viable. EE is nothing special. Just a bunch of souped up stats that require cheap tactics to overcome. But I won't pretend that I like the way Turbine has set things up; the constant grinding of Past Lives or the constant grinding of EDs that have no synergy with a particular class or playstyle just to advance your character.

That is a metagame that is beyond stupid to me. If that's the metagame you enjoy then you're welcome to it. Luckily for you Turbine largely supports it. Unluckily for you, they don't really seem to care too much about the TR train they created. That part at least is lucky for me. I can ignore it and concentrate on other parts. I hope TRs remain as "irrelevant" as they seem to have become. No offense to you or those who want to see them be more relevant, but that's just the way I feel.

wolfy42

03-04-2013, 02:48 PM

Ok, but you realize that

1) no character actually makes use of all of those at the same time,

2) those require 3x in every past life and

3) the difference is not as huge as you might think. It's actually pretty small, the only thing that changes a lot is spell pen. And it will be even smaller with the upcoming expansion...

Also, new characters are supposed to BE underpowered compared to people that have been around for years, since you are also taking gear into account. And they will still be able to run basically everything up to Epic Hard...

This is not even a PvP game, what exactly is the problem with new people feeling underpowered, are they all kids or something? O_o No matter how hard I try I can't understand what can possibly seem strange/unfair to a grown up about being WEAK when he joins a new game, and not even compared to content, just as opposed to veteran players. It's like this everywhere but here... Here it will take you 2-4 months to cap and gather enough EDs/gear to be able to challenge the hardest content in the game, provided you are an average learner and have -some- time to play

Of course there is going to be a power difference between a new character and an old one, but past lives give that advantage to older players at low levels (while they are going up the heroic levels) and that is just half of the equation. The other half of course is much better equipment, tomes etc.

There is a difference between having more power, and being invulnerable while doing 2x the damage as a new player. As it is, the bonuses from past lives can already make running content on the way up WAY easier solo then in a party with other non-TR'd players. Heck, I generally just run up myself because it takes to long to party.

You dont' really need larger bonuses in heroic content, and post heroic content you have ED's.

Past lives do give a boost even in epic content...so they are not useless, but boosting them anymore will break heroic content even more then it already is (and it's pretty broken still even with the changes to AC etc....the diff between one level 12 char and another can be huge as far as power, damage and survivability).

I guess I just dont' see why we would need additional power boosts for heroic content. IF you want it for epic content....well EDs take care of that already. I guess you could add special choices within the ED trees for characters with past lives, or even a whole new tree for TR'd characters, requiring more and more different past lives per tier..till you get to the top and need completionist for that.

That would pump the power of TR'd characters in epic content without making it even more rediculous at lower levels.

wolfy42

03-04-2013, 02:55 PM

Lets pretend.

Fawngate is on her 25th life, a Paladin Tank, which grants her 24 life points.

She will spend her life points thus:

1 point unspent

I like the idea, but probably need to give more life points at first...if the cost is 2 life points for most of those bonuses...you want to at least get something for every past life taken, unless you meant that as an addition to the passive bonuses already?

eonfreon

03-04-2013, 03:06 PM

Also, new characters are supposed to BE underpowered compared to people that have been around for years, since you are also taking gear into account. And they will still be able to run basically everything up to Epic Hard...

This is not even a PvP game, what exactly is the problem with new people feeling underpowered, are they all kids or something? O_o No matter how hard I try I can't understand what can possibly seem strange/unfair to a grown up about being WEAK when he joins a new game, and not even compared to content, just as opposed to veteran players. It's like this everywhere but here... Here it will take you 2-4 months to cap and gather enough EDs/gear to be able to challenge the hardest content in the game, provided you are an average learner and have -some- time to play

No, it isn't like that everywhere. Because very few other games give you bonuses for just re-leveling a character through the same content as newer players. Since it's mostly about gear and gear usually binds, a level 10 character, whether he's a vet or not, will be fairly even stat and gear wise. Sure, the Vet player will be more savy. He'll know where to look for certain items, he'll know what gear he needs to complement what abilities he has, he'll understand better about aggro management and which special abilities to use at what times, but he isn't leaps and bounds over other new players just by virtue of being given buffed up abilities from the get-go. And for the most part what divides a new player and a vet player in other games is levels. A vet will only be playing at the lower levels because he's trying out another class or something. So he doesn't even automatically have that much more knowledge about the class he's playing than a new player playing the same class. He may have seen how that other class functions and have some ideas of what it can do, but he also has to learn it, nearly as much as a brand new player. Once again, he'll have his meta-knowledge to fall back on and know how best to gear it and where to search for that gear, but he isn't de-facto more powerful. He doesn't automatically have bonuses that the new player can't get. He doesn't have abilities from other classes that stack on top of his own.

Silverleafeon

03-04-2013, 03:07 PM

Now, take a real good look at what Fawngate got out of this.

Coming from a player who actually plays thru his 25 lives seriously
trying to have good solid build.

If Fawn actually could have all this, what did she get?

Toughness type feat for free ~ very nice.

Completionist feat for free ~ very nice.

+2 to your Intimidate skill

+1 to the Maximum Dexterity Bonus of armor and shields

three times per rest, 1 min, granting +4 to hit

You have +1 to all skills

three times per rest 1 minute per use a +1 bonus to sneak attack damage for every two character levels, and a +1 bonus to hit with sneak attacks for every four levels

can produce a Barkskin effect three times per rest. (Activate this ranger ability to toughen the skin of an ally, giving a +2 natural armor bonus to AC with an additional +1 bonus for every 3 caster levels above 3rd, to a maximum of +5 at caster level 12th.)

You have +2 to all elemental resistances

Your maximum spell points are increased by 10 at first level, and 5 spell points for each additional level

can produce random elemental damage spells ten times per rest. (Activate this sorcerer ability to blast a target with a ray of combined elements, doing 1d12 damage of a random elemental type plus an additional 1d12 per three caster levels on impact. A successful Reflex save reduce the damage by half.)

You have +1 to all Charisma based skills

can Inspire Courage three times per rest. (Activate this bard ability to rally your companions, giving them a +1 morale bonus to saves against fear effects and a +1 morale bonus on attack and weapon damage rolls before enhancements.

can produce an Enchant Armor or Enchant Weapons effect a total of ten times per rest. (Activate this artificer ability to increase the Enhancement Bonus of your target's currently equipped weapons or shields by 1, or to increase the Enhancement Bonus of your target's currently equipped armor by 1. An item can have only one temporary item enchantment at a time

and can produce a Healing Word effect five times per rest. Positive energy is channeled to heal light wounds of your target or damage undead for 1d4 hit points plus an additional 1d4 per two caster levels.

=========

Now lets add up what really matters:

~two free feats~
Toughness type feat for free

Completionist feat for free

You have +2 to all elemental resistances (total of +8 including 3 passive ranger)

~a bonus to her favorite skill~
+4 to your Intimidate skill

~a small AC bonus along with a free augment slot, and an arty self buff~
+1 max dex bonus
+1 enchant armor spell
can cast barkskin +5 natural armor

~two combat boost type clickies~
three times per rest, 1 min, granting +4 to hit

three times per rest, 1 min, granting sneak attack only +6 to hit +12 damage

~two +1 bonuses when she is not questing with an arty or a bard~
Inspire Courage three times per rest. (Activate this bard ability to rally your companions, giving them a +1 morale bonus to saves against fear effects and a +1 morale bonus on attack and weapon damage rolls

Enchant Weapons effect a total of ten times per rest. (Activate this artificer ability to increase the Enhancement Bonus of your target's currently equipped weapons or shields by 1, or to increase the Enhancement Bonus of your target's

=====

The natural armor spell will eventually be useless as augments go beyond +5 natural armor.

The moral bonus to hit, she already gets with her bless spell.

With high intimidate, she often has agro, so the sneak attack is only sort of good.

Silverleafeon

03-04-2013, 03:11 PM

I like the idea, but probably need to give more life points at first...if the cost is 2 life points for most of those bonuses...you want to at least get something for every past life taken, unless you meant that as an addition to the passive bonuses already?

I want to keep the currently passive past life feats granted, because that is the main reason
for Fawngate doing all those lives, besides it was fun for her. They are the heart of TRing.

Thank you, the idea needs a ton of work, starting out with X life points.
Then gain X per level to spend.

That is why I want to see a Kruz Tree when the Epic Reicarnation happens.

Expect for the two free feats, notice it did not really increase Fawngate's power much, just a lot of flavor and some help leveling up.

.

Gremmlynn

03-04-2013, 03:16 PM

PLs are different from other feats because they actually need to be unlocked. Another feat can be nerfed and many players will be upset, but if a PL feat gets nerfed...well that's never gonna happen, because since it takes that long to acquire them Turbine is well aware of how much of an impact a nerf would have on the player base.

But again, since you fail to understand how much difference there is between 30 hp when hp is the main defense (no AC, no dodge, no PRR) and the average hp is 500, and 30 hp when you have a lot more defensive options and the average is 800, then sorry, no point trying to convince you about anything.

P.S.: dodge DOES scale since it will always be 3%. I think you are missing some of the key points here...I guess some of us have different perspectives as far as what TRing's purpose is.

Some see it as a method of working for more in-game advantage, however disjointed the process. For this, the rewards are nowhere near worth the effort IMO.

While others of us see it as a method of deluding oneself that it is a worthwhile enough goal to continue playing a game we like to play, but have already achieved every goal truly worthwhile goal. Basically, something to do just for the sake of doing it. For this, the current rewards are, if anything, a bit to large in some cases IMO.

eonfreon

03-04-2013, 03:16 PM

Now, take a real good look at what Fawngate got out of this.

Coming from a player who actually plays thru his 25 lives seriously
trying to have good solid build.

=========

Now lets add up what really matters:

~two free feats~
Toughness type feat for free

Completionist feat for free

~a bonus to her favorite skill~
+4 to your Intimidate skill

~a small AC bonus along with a free augment slot, and an arty self buff~
+1 max dex bonus
+1 enchant armor spell
can cast barkskin +5 natural armor

~two combat boost type clickies~
three times per rest, 1 min, granting +4 to hit

three times per rest, 1 min, granting sneak attack only +6 to hit +12 damage

~two +1 bonuses when she is not questing with an arty or a bard~
Inspire Courage three times per rest. (Activate this bard ability to rally your companions, giving them a +1 morale bonus to saves against fear effects and a +1 morale bonus on attack and weapon damage rolls

Enchant Weapons effect a total of ten times per rest. (Activate this artificer ability to increase the Enhancement Bonus of your target's currently equipped weapons or shields by 1, or to increase the Enhancement Bonus of your target's

=====

The natural armor spell will eventually be useless as augments go beyond +5 natural armor.

The moral bonus to hit, she already gets with her bless spell.

With high intimidate, she often has agro, so the sneak attack is only sort of good.

It's sounds fine. And I have a lot of respect for you. I think you sound like a really nice person. But you knew what you were getting from the get-go. Why is it not good enough anymore?

What you've done is play a certain way that you enjoyed. Was not the point of it to reach a goal? To be able to say you got a Completionist? What has changed that you now want more?

Just wondering. On the surface it sounds fine. For all we know that could be the direction that Epic TR is going. But do you really think it would make sense to take the time to code what you've described at this point in the game? Just so that Completionist can get just that little bit more?

I certainly wouldn't be adverse to what you ask for. Yes, it would all be largely outdated once you get past level 20. But you mostly play at levels 1-20. How many more abilities do you really need at levels 1-20?

Silverleafeon

03-04-2013, 03:21 PM

And I have a lot of respect for you.
Nods happily.

Looking thru it all in detail, it comes down to what the three completionists in our guild
agreed upon.

It sure would be nice if we could have the completionist feat for free,
cause feat sure are tight.

Other than that, I could walk away from the rest.

The free toughness feat for everyone would be nice too.

I think this thread started with a group of completionist chatting,
which reminded me of our chats.

It all boiled down to, I wish the completionist feat was auto granted as a passive feat.

Silverleafeon

03-04-2013, 03:35 PM

Really, honestly, Completionist feat free, toughness for everyone, and I am happy as a lark.

We do need a way to go from lvl 40 back to 20, kind of TRing someday, along with associated
benefits. Or maybe a 30 to 20 TR along with a 40 to 30 TR.

Lyria

03-04-2013, 03:36 PM

At this point, you guys are just strawmanning (yes, eonfreon too since he's saying the same). Past lives becoming mandatory if slightly buffed, or should I say balanced, is your assumption and it has nothing to back it up.

It's not "strawmaning". It's simply pointing out that if you buff up past lives, it makes EE that much easier. To the point that more multi-TR/maxed-ED people will complain that EE is "way too easy" (they're already doing that). The argument becomes, at that point, that if they're forced to balance content for these newly-buffed up characters, it WILL start forcing people to have to TR in order to compete.

That's the argument.

Past lives are there to make the game easier to the people who get them. Which means they will complete EE more easily, not that they will be the only ones entitled to do so.

I've never said otherwise. You're the one who brought up wanting content so difficult that it WOULD require someone with multiple TRs to complete, and have said that you aren't fond of the idea of some "casual player" who hasn't TR'd competing in EE content.

I did say that if that happened (only multi-trs being able to run some content) it wouldn't even be too wrong, but I also said it's not gonna happen anyway.

Yes, it would be extremely wrong. It would be just as wrong as making content that LOCKS OUT multi-TR people.

Don't mix things up: hardcore (elite, w/e term you prefer) is different from multi-tr. A "elite" player will have great gear, a great build, great player skill and experience. It can very well be a first life toon, (a barb or a sorc doesn't even need 36 points so yeah...). And the top difficulty should be balanced around such players. Past lives are something that will make such end game easier for such players, NOT the thing end game would be balanced around. Top difficulty can and should be balanced around top 10% players (the "hardcore ones"), not top <1% (the 3x completionist ones).

This is a completely different argument than you were making before. This is essentially what *I* have been saying. Players are perfectly capable of crushing EE content on a first-life character due to skill -- they're simply good players. TRing would just make it easier.

I don't think you've done this on purpose but you've kinda twisted the original argument into a slightly different version (TR=required and content balanced around completionists/multi-trs) and then argued against such straw man.

No, my argument has never been that TRs are required. You're the one who has brought up the idea of wanting content that requires TRs to complete. That you'd want to see content that's set hard enough that only multi-TR characters can complete it, and offer better rewards. And that is what I've been strenuously arguing against.

It's a simple if/then scenario. If Turbine were to buff up TRs like some people want, it would allow those characters to crush end-game content much more easily. People would then complain end-game is "too easy". Turbine would either have to a) tell those people to suck it up (ticking them off) or b) balance new content around these upgraded characters, thereby ticking everyone ELSE off.

It's a lose/lose scenario for Turbine.

We'll see what they do with the "epic TR" idea. I just hope they don't screw it up and destroy game balance in the process.

Qhualor

03-04-2013, 03:46 PM

We already get free toughness. Its called heroic durability.

First, the complaints were EE was too tough. Than EE became easy. I dont care if i am a multi TR, completionist or not, or a first lifer. EE should be challenging for everyone and the PLs just make questing a bit easier, but not necessary. I know that there are some with 3 PLs or less that are saying EE is easy and some say they can solo some of them.

I still think, though, that certain PLs do need a boost, while others are fine as is. Some of the active PLs, i think, need to be seriously changed.

Gremmlynn

03-04-2013, 03:51 PM

While I certainly agree that we do not want to greatly increase the power gap between new
players and long term players, it is nice to give us something to work towards and dream about.
After all uber completionist benefits are being debated here when only 3 players have actually
achieved this. This must be where the disconnect is in this thread for me. Because, to me, being able to jump into brand new elite content at level on a 28 (or less) point average (or less) geared character and succeed is really the only thing to work towards and dream about.

FengXian

03-04-2013, 04:38 PM

Of course there is going to be a power difference between a new character and an old one, but past lives give that advantage to older players at low levels (while they are going up the heroic levels) and that is just half of the equation. The other half of course is much better equipment, tomes etc.

There is a difference between having more power, and being invulnerable while doing 2x the damage as a new player. As it is, the bonuses from past lives can already make running content on the way up WAY easier solo then in a party with other non-TR'd players. Heck, I generally just run up myself because it takes to long to party.

You dont' really need larger bonuses in heroic content, and post heroic content you have ED's.

Past lives do give a boost even in epic content...so they are not useless, but boosting them anymore will break heroic content even more then it already is (and it's pretty broken still even with the changes to AC etc....the diff between one level 12 char and another can be huge as far as power, damage and survivability).

I guess I just dont' see why we would need additional power boosts for heroic content. IF you want it for epic content....well EDs take care of that already. I guess you could add special choices within the ED trees for characters with past lives, or even a whole new tree for TR'd characters, requiring more and more different past lives per tier..till you get to the top and need completionist for that.

That would pump the power of TR'd characters in epic content without making it even more rediculous at lower levels.

The difference in power in heroic content between TRs and 1st lifers come from GEAR. PLs have a very low influence on that, compared to twinked items. For example the much dreaded spell pen bonus only kicks in in Tempest Spine, and is only useful when you actually start getting the first insta-kills. But casters usually will level using damage spells like FW, Acid Rain etc up to IQ anyway.
The +6 damage to ranged is very very strong at first levels. But no one will have the ranged feats to make good use of them on a bow, so it's only good if you're a repeater user (in which case I admit it's insanely good, but again, only at low levels).

And those are two of the strongest PLs. Sure, past life bonuses that do not scale will count way more at low levels, which also means they will become nearly useless at cap, with just a couple exceptions. But the main source of TR'd toons' power while leveling is gear.

My only problem is if I have to reset Feats every single time. They are not free resets. Having to change out of KotC is one thing. Having to fit in archery Feats so that my Paladin can take advantage of the Shiradi kitefest is quite another.

The problem with DDO is that is becomes too quickly about the Flavor of the Month. How did it make sense that Tempest was introduced that required three Feats that hardly anybody took?

If I had to TR my Paladin build that I've had since the level cap was 16 just so that I can "compete" with every Flavor of the Month that would just be stupid. Especially if I had to TR him into some other class. That's just too far.

Maybe since you've been playing when TR was basically the only game left in DDO you don't see that as a problem. But I do. The fact that you can't play a Ranger on your TR any more because it would be "pointless" to do so is also a problem in my book. You keep thinking that TRs are a major part of the game or something. That it's "the" way to adapt to the changing game. They were not touted as such. TRs were not sold as a way to deal with every buff and nerf to the game. They were an optional thing to do if you got bored waiting for Turbine to finally develop new content. They weren't supposed to be a substitute for end game, just something else to do, instead of rerolling you could keep all your tomes raid gear intact. But I think the overall underwhelming nature of the rewards points exactly to what I said. They were not supposed to be a major or important part of a character's build. They were supposed to be able to be ignored for the most part. I think the lucrative venture of selling xp pots to compensate for the arbitrary xp penalty built into the TRs is what allowed them to get attention from the Devs. And very little attention at that. All they did was keep from developing end game content. And as soon as they did, they made it quite apparent that TRing was not the focus.

Turbine didn't want people who reran the content over and over as TRs to gain such significant power as to make it mandatory to do so. Can you imagine trying to sell a new player on the notion that upon reaching level 20 the right thing to do is to restart all over again. The bonus is you get to keep what your character already has and get some neat little perks. The downside is that you have an xp "penalty" built right in. Everything about TRs screams "distraction", but little says "important". And they want people to buy the EDs now and keep leveling. You can't sell EDs if you tell people that the only way to play the EDs to the max would be to also TR and replay the game.

Yes I am getting more used to Turbine flipping and flopping. Today archery will be top dog, tomorrow it'll probably suck. Just like TWF and THF. You really think it makes sense that Turbine decided to add mostly only things for THF? That everyone who built for TWF should now just rebuild for THF?

I don't really care in the long run. The game is only fun enough to play. It isn't fun enough to make me absolutely feel like I have to play the respec game to be viable. EE is nothing special. Just a bunch of souped up stats that require cheap tactics to overcome. But I won't pretend that I like the way Turbine has set things up; the constant grinding of Past Lives or the constant grinding of EDs that have no synergy with a particular class or playstyle just to advance your character.

That is a metagame that is beyond stupid to me. If that's the metagame you enjoy then you're welcome to it. Luckily for you Turbine largely supports it. Unluckily for you, they don't really seem to care too much about the TR train they created. That part at least is lucky for me. I can ignore it and concentrate on other parts. I hope TRs remain as "irrelevant" as they seem to have become. No offense to you or those who want to see them be more relevant, but that's just the way I feel.

Metagame shifts are present everywhere. Being able to get away with just a feat swap you can buy for a few plats in AH (flawless dragonshard) is actually very easy. If you have to change a lot you might prefer a LR/TR, which are also obtainable by free means. And such large meta shifts, the ones for which an enhancement/gear/feat swap won't suffice are actually very rare.

Take MTG for example: the meta shifts very often, especially in some formats. You have to change very expensive decks every year or even more often if you want to keep up as stuff actually rotates out.

TBH I think that the fact that the "top" build archetypes constantly change is a beatiful thing. Because if you want to stick to your build you can still complete EE anyway, but with every update the "best" option changes and it should be like that, otherwise it would be very boring! I'm sorry for DC casters but it's actually a good thing if other builds/types get to shine.

What is bad is when builds actually become useless. But if they simply fall from the top, not being the most efficient solution but still a valid one, it's ok.

My main has always been a ranged toon even when ranged was sub-par, especially when ranged was sub-par, because I wanted to prove it was still viable. I had been working on a 12 monk 6 ranger 2 fighter build way before 10k stars started to work with ranged. Now those builds have their moment, what is wrong about that, when DC casters have dominated for years?
Same goes for defensive melee vs full-****** DPS.

I'm becoming more and more suspicious about the fact that many of the complains we see on the forums these weeks are actually coming from players unhappy because they have to change their build if the want to stay on the top, and gosh do they want to!

Not your case I think, but you get the idea...

FengXian

03-04-2013, 04:48 PM

It's not "strawmaning". It's simply pointing out that if you buff up past lives, it makes EE that much easier. To the point that more multi-TR/maxed-ED people will complain that EE is "way too easy" (they're already doing that). The argument becomes, at that point, that if they're forced to balance content for these newly-buffed up characters, it WILL start forcing people to have to TR in order to compete.

That's the argument.

My only capped toon atm is a 2nd life tank. My other capped toon until a couple of weeks ago was a 6th life 12 sorc/6 ranger/2 monk AA.

Neither of them is one of those uber completionists, and guess what, EE did look too easy for me pre-U17, and many of the GH quests do as well right now. Heck even PoP yesterday was a complete joke, to the point I suspect a stealth-nerf...and Tor is regularly a joke up to dragons. And running on my 2nd life toon is actually easier because he's more end-game focused atm.

Another very good player was saying EE is too easy, and one of the toons he used to solo EE on was a 1st life FvS.

So as you can see it has nothing to do with the number of past lives. Content has never been balanced around the number of past lives, simply because they are not influent enough, compared to other sources of power. This is a FACT. And even if you buff them as suggested, the other sources of power will actually gain even more since the expansion is bringing us lv 28. What do you think will count more, another +2 damage from 4th and 5th monk PL or 3 extra epic levels (with new destiny-like stuff etc)?
If the former will count 1, the latter will count 10. So there is no danger that a slight buff to PLs will significantly influence the game's balance.

eonfreon

03-04-2013, 04:48 PM

This must be where the disconnect is in this thread for me. Because, to me, being able to jump into brand new elite content at level on a 28 (or less) point average (or less) geared character and succeed is really the only thing to work towards and dream about.

Yes, I share a bit of that disconnect. I don't begrudge someone wanting a little bit more reward for their achievements, it's only human nature. But I don't understand wanting more and more for simply re-running old content. Old content which is for the most part, some of the easiest parts of the game. It was tough once, when we did it at-level without souped up abilities and without knowing the lay-outs and little tricks. But once we did know the layouts and little tricks it was already easier, even without PLs.

So I really have no problems with suggestions that give just a little more something to people who enjoy a certain play style, but I don't want to see those bonuses strart to affect other playstyles. Yes, they've spent time building up their characters, but it's time spent on the easiest part of the game. Sure, some quests have some tough parts to them, notably Amrath and some Vale quests (and I know most TRs loathe Amrath due to the low xp/minute or so I hear), but that's only tough if you don't know what gear is needed or don't know what tricks work best. By definition a TR should have no trouble at all in those quests. It's hardly a challenge. Therefore the "hard" part of it isn't the difficulty but the grindy nature of it. That's why I largely ignored it. I couldn't find any reason to replay old content that I had already beaten on a 28 pt build several times over just so I could gain up to 36 pt builds. All my last characters were finally converted to 32 pt builds and they flew by that content.

So what is so impressive about TRing? What makes it so special? I never saw a reason for it, thus I didn't participate. I just object to the notion of having to play that type of grindiness to advance characters. Luckily, it's never really been necessary (unless you were a caster doing old Epics trying to get through Drow SR- then it was quite necessary, annoyingly so).

Other games are moving away from that kind of grindy gameplay. They see that they are losing customers. They knew they were hooking into the obsessive-compulsive nature of many people to keep them spending loads of time for tiny little improvements and they were finally called on it. While other games are moving away from that type of grindiness (somewhat), DDO which was once a "free updates, grind free game" has been moving towards it. To a lot of grind.

And time doesn't really mean all that much. I think Feng said something about how Turbine would never dare to nerf some of the OP PL feats because they represent a large amount of playtime devoted by a player. I have to laugh at that notion. Just look at TWF. People built their characters up for years trying to fit TWF, which was not easy, mostly requiring build points spent in Dex which players would rather allocate elsewhere, plus usually a +2 Tome needed as well, and a layout of Feats that were absolutely necessary. Players took years building and gearing those characters. And what does Turbine do? Nerf, nerf, nerf, and more nerf. Right now it's all about THF. Apparently, I'm supposed to chuck out all the gear I accumulated and convert my character to THF Feats. That's what the metagame tells me to do.

Turbine had no problem whatsoever nerfing the heck out of TWF, despite the amount of time and work people put into it. What makes PL feats so special? Because some people decided to replay the same content they've played over and over again to achieve them?

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see any nerfs (although the caster ones are a bit problematic- even some of the melee ones - +3 to Tactics means +15% that can't be gained any other way. Of course someone being at 80% while someone is at 95% isn't too earthshattering, however the +9 to Spell Pen is huge- how can Turbine balance that? They can't so they don't bother they just toss on massive immunities and move on- so now no one can land spells reliably, regardless of PL or not- but hey it's okay, just spec to this new thing, Shiradi and you're all the same again).

Turbine has to work on overall game balance before they start giving rewards just because people want them.

Gremmlynn

03-04-2013, 04:50 PM

The point that you bring up is absolutely true. Past Life bonuses need to be a perk for players that have gone that extra mile. Meaningful enough that they can see the small difference, but not absolutely necessary to succeed. The problem is that in it's current state of balance, they do not really provide anything at all. The caster ones look amazing on the character sheet, but do not actually translate into anything useful because in top level EE they still do not make you reliable enough to be worth the party slot. The melee ones do not even make enough of a difference to get noticed at all. The defensive ones such as Paladin and Ranger are not too bad, I suppose.That's because with the current state of the game they no longer are necessary to keep players busy. Think of them like they are the broom one's boss hands them when there is no real work to be done. When that work shows up, he doesn't care if they are only half done sweeping he'll tell them to put down the broom and get to the real work.

That's what Turbine is doing with past lives now. Telling players to quit wasting time with that, now, nearly pointless grind and get on with the new stuff they gave you. Making the ED's as relatively strong as they did just points that out.

eonfreon

03-04-2013, 05:13 PM

Metagame shifts are present everywhere. Being able to get away with just a feat swap you can buy for a few plats in AH (flawless dragonshard) is actually very easy. If you have to change a lot you might prefer a LR/TR, which are also obtainable by free means. And such large meta shifts, the ones for which an enhancement/gear/feat swap won't suffice are actually very rare.

Take MTG for example: the meta shifts very often, especially in some formats. You have to change very expensive decks every year or even more often if you want to keep up as stuff actually rotates out.

TBH I think that the fact that the "top" build archetypes constantly change is a beatiful thing. Because if you want to stick to your build you can still complete EE anyway, but with every update the "best" option changes and it should be like that, otherwise it would be very boring! I'm sorry for DC casters but it's actually a good thing if other builds/types get to shine.

What is bad is when builds actually become useless. But if they simply fall from the top, not being the most efficient solution but still a valid one, it's ok.

My main has always been a ranged toon even when ranged was sub-par, especially when ranged was sub-par, because I wanted to prove it was still viable. I had been working on a 12 monk 6 ranger 2 fighter build way before 10k stars started to work with ranged. Now those builds have their moment, what is wrong about that, when DC casters have dominated for years?
Same goes for defensive melee vs full-****** DPS.

I'm becoming more and more suspicious about the fact that many of the complains we see on the forums these weeks are actually coming from players unhappy because they have to change their build if the want to stay on the top, and gosh do they want to!

Not your case I think, but you get the idea...

Yes, I get your drift and I do agree to a large extent. I guess I'm just old school about it. I play one character nowadays. He is what he is. And he is built to accomodate quite large meta-shifts, as you put it, because I saw Turbine's incessant need to nerf and buff constantly.

As a Paladin with 12 Feats + 2 Epic I have quite a lot of versatility. But it's getting very tiring with Turbine constantly changing what Feats do and what Mobs are immune to what.

There is nothing wrong with your character getting your chance to shine. However, your character is doubtful to be what I talked about. The character build I'm talking about is basically taking advantage of an unintended synergy, an exploit if you will, that allows it to just make a joke of Turbine's AI and mechanics. 300 damage a hit? Who cares, just keep moving and don't get hit. Anyway, it's not relevant. Turbine will realize it soon enough and then they'll overuse the nerfbat and all other builds that are similar but not OP will take a major hit. It's just the way Turbine works and they can play the game themselves if they want to figure it out, I won't explain it for them.

But you are right about one thing, I don't want to have to change my build every time Turbine makes a new update. Luckily, since I'm not worried about my relevance in EE content, I don't have to. If I really cared about being at the top I'd just roll a FvS and be quite content.

However, I'd really rather see Turbine make some effort in making all classes pretty well balanced. Lessen the impact for FOTM builds. Some of the pure classes that Turbine puts out are so underpowered compared to their Multi-class counterparts it just looks bad. It looks like Turbine doesn't know how to design the classes. It wasn't always this way. Other than some slight player's mistake like putting too much Dex on a Sorc or something, each class was far better balanced against each other. When Turbine started adding in PREs and later PL Feats they were all over the place. They just don't seem to have a decent enough vision for the game. One class or playstyle is dominating? Don't fix it just swing the nerfbat or make quests that are immune.

As it is, I still have 900,000 xp until I reach level 25. I still have a bunch of quests to do at all difficulties. I'll primarily stick to EH until I do cap and I'll hope that I haven't racked up too many repetition penalties by then so that I don't wind up advancing at a glacial rate. But at least if I'm at level 25 I won't worry about going back to a beneficial ED that's capped because even if I don't get xp for an EE run, I also won't be penalized for it.

BTW, I couldn't care less about your MTG analogy (Magic the Gathering I take it?). Because those types of games are that way to keep you buying more and more cards ;). Once DDO was not nearly as grindy as it is today. While other games have moved away from that grind, DDO has started to embrace it.

Gremmlynn

03-04-2013, 05:16 PM

I can undestand many of your arguments, but I really can't grasp why you guys feel like casual players should be able to run every quest on every difficulty, and what's the big deal if hardcore crazy PL grinders can do something casuals can't. And don't play the Turbine marketing card on me, I want to know the moral/logical reasons behind it, not the economical ones.I don't understand why you equate anyone who see's rerolling over and over as a pointless time sink as being casual and not as worthy as those who accept that as a legitimate game mechanic. To me your question is much like asking why accounts that haven't mastered origami should expect access to the same customers as those who have, because obviously all the time they spent mastering that makes them much better at paperwork.

FengXian

03-04-2013, 05:31 PM

Turbine had no problem whatsoever nerfing the heck out of TWF, despite the amount of time and work people put into it. What makes PL feats so special? Because some people decided to replay the same content they've played over and over again to achieve them?

You don't have to get rid of the TWF gear - there are still TWF builds that can hold their own (compete with top), and the enhancement pass that will fix it seems to be on its way (beta this spring?).

You might only have to LR/TR if your playstyle suddendly becomes junk (no longer viable for end game), which doesn't happen really often, and is not a big deal anyway (having to TR once, maybe twice in the whole game, because a LR can fix most problems).

If your 10+ PLs become junk, you can't "fix it" by adapting them to the current end game: they simply become useless...I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

For example, it took me two years to find a shard of the Thornlord. I crafted it what, 6 months before U14? And then bam! Pinion comes out, and now it even gets a red slot. So what, I just got myself one and moved on.

I was having a lot of fun on my sorc AA but I realized I would be more competitive with 10k stars (and I missed it a bit since my previous life was a classic monkcher), so I simply TR'd into a different kind of monkcher with 10k stars (not even a copy-build from the forums, kinda unique version actually).

But if my past lives were removed/nerfed significantly, I would be very upset, because those past lives are all that is left of my TR'd toons, and the power gained should be somewhat meaningful.

Maybe this way it will be easier to understand: you say you're only interested in playing at cap. I, on the other hand, have sacrificed a few capped toons, and have gone through the whole game again. I could have kept only playing at cap and gathering gear, plat etc., but I chosed to sacrifice all that, quite a few times...for nothing? For a pair of wings and some barely noticeable feat (either if nerfed or simply outweighted nearly completely by new abilities)? That won't do. The very nature of past lives representing the only "legacy" of a capped toon you decided to TR makes them very nerf-resistant imho.

Some people will simply chain-tr and grind, but you have to consider that there are a lot more people who actually TR with the intention of playing that toon at cap. Heck my last two TRs on my main were both done after reaching lv 25. Maybe if I simply chain-tr'd every time with a 14 sorc 1 rogue 5x split + LR at cap I wouldn't care that much about PLs. But it's not the case, and I'm not an exception :P

Deadlock

03-04-2013, 05:38 PM

That's because with the current state of the game they no longer are necessary to keep players busy. Think of them like they are the broom one's boss hands them when there is no real work to be done. When that work shows up, he doesn't care if they are only half done sweeping he'll tell them to put down the broom and get to the real work.

That's what Turbine is doing with past lives now. Telling players to quit wasting time with that, now, nearly pointless grind and get on with the new stuff they gave you. Making the ED's as relatively strong as they did just points that out.

Fundamentally disagree with this point of view. Whatever you believe the reasons for introducing the whole idea of TRing were in the first place, the fact is that it's here and it's one of the features that differentiates this game from others out there. It's there as an option for those with the time and inclination. It's not a must-have. But it should provide benefits.

Of course your character should gain power from the experiences gained in the previous life.

But as I said right from the outset, which others have chosen to completely ignore, in no way should the increased power that comes with TRing become a pre-requisite for quest design. As has been said repeatedly, the fact that +9 Spell Pen from past lives is considered by some to be a must-have just highlights that Spell Resistance is broken and should be fixed. Saying that the devs have carefully calculated numbers before setting mob Spell Pen is giving them way too much credit.

New content is great and what we all want. I'm loving the conclusion to the Stormreaver storyline with Epic Gianthold. But I don't just want to see Epic end-game content. I want to see more mid-range quests to reduce the grind that upsets some people. And I would like to TR and run that content on my main. And I have no problem with that content being a bit easier for anyone with multiple past lives.

FengXian

03-04-2013, 05:40 PM

I don't understand why you equate anyone who see's rerolling over and over as a pointless time sink as being casual and not as worthy as those who accept that as a legitimate game mechanic. To me your question is much like asking why accounts that haven't mastered origami should expect access to the same customers as those who have, because obviously all the time they spent mastering that makes them much better at paperwork.

For the X time, hardcore, elite etc., does NOT mean necessarily multi-tr. I have said this quite a few times now. Hardcore/elite to me means a person who has put a lot of time and dedication into the game. In many cases it means multi-tr, but not necessarily.

As opposed to casual, who only plays now and then without putting much effort into farming "stuff", be it gear, EDs or past lives.

The more effort, time (or, in case of P2W, money) you put into the game, the greater the reward and thus the more powerful, GENERALLY, your toon should be.

LordMond63

03-04-2013, 05:56 PM

As one of those "casual" players, I am resigned to the fact that EE content is not something that I can handle, given that I am a first life CC Archmage and I'm not real keen to go the TR route with him. Unlike some, I find TRing to be a horrendously boring grind, with far too few quests giving enough xp to warrant running (no, 6k isn't a decent xp award when it takes 80,000 or whatever for you next rank), especially post-level 14. To think that I would have to run the TR route some six or seven times just to get my Spell Penetration and DCs up high enough to be able to count on them working reliably in EE content is not something I am willing to do. I would add that I don't see that as something ANYONE should have to do in order to contribute in a segment of gameplay, but others obviously feel quite differently.

But you know what? I'm not going to ask Turbine to 'dumb down' their toughest content to make it accessible to me and players like me. I'm perfectly fine with EN and EH content. If others seek more of a challenge and are willing to pay the price (in terms of effort and time) to play it, more power to them.

Gremmlynn

03-04-2013, 06:17 PM

tl;dr: there is no risk end game would be balanced around multi-trs, completionists and such, being a multi-tr would simply make end game easier.

-there aren't enough completionists/3x completionists to influence game balance that much
-past lives, even if slightly buffed/fixed, would never be able to influence a character's power enough compared to heroic build, gear, EDs, player skill and experience. Heck even ship buffs are more useful (and not just the resists)...The problem seems to be that some see the TR grind and completionist as a sort of achievement that Turbine should reward them for doing. While others of us see it as a pointless grind that Turbine better not expect us to do, or penalize us for not doing.

One group is simply dong what they see the game expects them to to succeed (and getting a little disappointed at how it's not working out that way), while the other is telling Turbine what kind of game we are willing to pay them to develop.

Gremmlynn

03-04-2013, 07:06 PM

I can see why Turbine focused there for a while. It was lucrative selling xp pots to people that were getting tired of grinding the same quests over and over. And they even did release new low level quests. As usual they generally missed the mark, making more content at the level range that most people had no problem leveling through and ignoring the level range that people were struggling to level through. Who knows what their thinking is.It seemed pretty obvious to me. They were making content at levels where most of their new premium customers were playing at that time.

It wasn't fulfilling the needs of the game so much as making hay where the sun was shinning.

Lyria

03-04-2013, 07:17 PM

If your 10+ PLs become junk, you can't "fix it" by adapting them to the current end game: they simply become useless...I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

You keep bringing up this argument. PLs haven't become "junk". They give the same bonuses they always have. They haven't been nerfed. Do they provide as large of a percentage of the whole as they used to? No. But that doesn't make them "junk", or worthless.

Some examples of REAL "junk" feats: Bullheaded, Combat Casting, Self-Sufficient, Brutal Throw, Athletic, etc. +2 spell pen? Not junk. +10 hp? Not junk. +1 DC with tactical feats? Not junk. Sure, they may be somewhat outclassed as levels get higher, but they don't suddenly become utter trash.

If we reach a point where the average caster has 6000+ mana, the +120ish from mental toughness wouldn't be that great an option anymore, but it wouldn't be trash. However, given that it takes a feat slot, most people wouldn't take it. PL passives don't take slots. The actives? Probably not so great. But the passives are never going to be trash, or useless.

PL passives are in no way, shape or form "junk". Stop trying to use that argument, it holds no weight.

Gremmlynn

03-04-2013, 07:19 PM

If having to change your character theme in order to compete with the best is a problem for you, we'll never agree on this.

Meta is in constant evolution. If you had a KotC when devils where THE end game, you would have been upset by the change, by this logic. If you want to compete with the best (and not just complete content) in end game, there's a good chance you'll have to redo or at least modify your toon every time new end game content is released.

I very likely missed something because this sounds too wrong :P As I said, not enough time now, I'll read more carefully later.I'm going to have to disagree. It is really poor game design if one is forced to change the theme of their character to match every content update.

Metagaming is a game within itself on the other hand. That's more about showing how much smarter one is than the developers, than playing a game on one's own terms. Though the line about "competing with the best" used about a PvE game shows a bit about your mindset (if there were a decent PvP game out right now, I would be competing with the best. But IMO that ship sailed with the closing of "Shadowbane").

bartharok

03-04-2013, 07:22 PM

For the X time, hardcore, elite etc., does NOT mean necessarily multi-tr. I have said this quite a few times now. Hardcore/elite to me means a person who has put a lot of time and dedication into the game. In many cases it means multi-tr, but not necessarily.

As opposed to casual, who only plays now and then without putting much effort into farming "stuff", be it gear, EDs or past lives.

The more effort, time (or, in case of P2W, money) you put into the game, the greater the reward and thus the more powerful, GENERALLY, your toon should be.

Elite and hardcore are far from the same thing. Dont know if youve claimed this or not, since the walls are too thick. A casual player can be just as "elite" as a hardcore player, since elite does not necessarily mean grinding out every advantage, but taking advantage of what you got.

Gremmlynn

03-04-2013, 07:35 PM

Also, new characters are supposed to BE underpowered compared to people that have been around for years, since you are also taking gear into account. And they will still be able to run basically everything up to Epic Hard...

No, low level characters are supposed to be weaker than higher level characters.

It really annoys me that people can't tell the difference between player and characters. Players get better at their one pace, characters progress at the rate that game mechanics dictate.

New players on new characters should not have less potential than long time players on new characters. The long time player is likely to get more out of their character's potential, but they should never get a mechanical boost to it.

Gremmlynn

03-04-2013, 07:49 PM

Gremmlynn

03-04-2013, 08:32 PM

We do need a way to go from lvl 40 back to 20, kind of TRing someday, along with associated
benefits. Or maybe a 30 to 20 TR along with a 40 to 30 TR.Why?

I mean I wish there was a way to go back to 30 from (almost) 50 IRL, but I don't see a real need for it.

Why is this needed in DDO when every other game I have ever played didn't have a need for it?

HungarianRhapsody

03-04-2013, 08:34 PM

Why?

I mean I wish there was a way to go back to 30 from (almost) 50 IRL, but I don't see a real need for it.

Why is this needed in DDO when every other game I have ever played didn't have a need for it?

There is a need for it from Turbine's perspective.

Grind is a good thing according to MMO developers. Go figure.

Gremmlynn

03-04-2013, 09:10 PM

However, I'd really rather see Turbine make some effort in making all classes pretty well balanced. Lessen the impact for FOTM builds. Some of the pure classes that Turbine puts out are so underpowered compared to their Multi-class counterparts it just looks bad. It looks like Turbine doesn't know how to design the classes. It wasn't always this way. Other than some slight player's mistake like putting too much Dex on a Sorc or something, each class was far better balanced against each other. When Turbine started adding in PREs and later PL Feats they were all over the place. They just don't seem to have a decent enough vision for the game. One class or playstyle is dominating? Don't fix it just swing the nerfbat or make quests that are immune.

With this, they actually started out with the handicap of having to convert a turn based table top game into a real time video game. They also seem to have either rushed things quite a bit or never really bothered to make long term plans with the game. They keep adding "neat" new things that just don't fit with what they already have (and in many cases don't seem to work well with the code they already have). When the game launched in 2006, it should have been easy for a dev to extrapolate what a level 25, 30 or even 100 character would be like simply by looking at the plan. The various crafting systems should all fit together neatly because they follow the plan, etc.

eonfreon

03-04-2013, 09:19 PM

You don't have to get rid of the TWF gear - there are still TWF builds that can hold their own (compete with top), and the enhancement pass that will fix it seems to be on its way (beta this spring?).

You might only have to LR/TR if your playstyle suddendly becomes junk (no longer viable for end game), which doesn't happen really often, and is not a big deal anyway (having to TR once, maybe twice in the whole game, because a LR can fix most problems).

If your 10+ PLs become junk, you can't "fix it" by adapting them to the current end game: they simply become useless...I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

For example, it took me two years to find a shard of the Thornlord. I crafted it what, 6 months before U14? And then bam! Pinion comes out, and now it even gets a red slot. So what, I just got myself one and moved on.

I was having a lot of fun on my sorc AA but I realized I would be more competitive with 10k stars (and I missed it a bit since my previous life was a classic monkcher), so I simply TR'd into a different kind of monkcher with 10k stars (not even a copy-build from the forums, kinda unique version actually).

But if my past lives were removed/nerfed significantly, I would be very upset, because those past lives are all that is left of my TR'd toons, and the power gained should be somewhat meaningful.

Maybe this way it will be easier to understand: you say you're only interested in playing at cap. I, on the other hand, have sacrificed a few capped toons, and have gone through the whole game again. I could have kept only playing at cap and gathering gear, plat etc., but I chosed to sacrifice all that, quite a few times...for nothing? For a pair of wings and some barely noticeable feat (either if nerfed or simply outweighted nearly completely by new abilities)? That won't do. The very nature of past lives representing the only "legacy" of a capped toon you decided to TR makes them very nerf-resistant imho.

Some people will simply chain-tr and grind, but you have to consider that there are a lot more people who actually TR with the intention of playing that toon at cap. Heck my last two TRs on my main were both done after reaching lv 25. Maybe if I simply chain-tr'd every time with a 14 sorc 1 rogue 5x split + LR at cap I wouldn't care that much about PLs. But it's not the case, and I'm not an exception :P

Yes, I understand what you're trying to say. I mostly agree with it. It mirrors some of my own point of views but in a different direction.

Of course TWF isn't junk, I was just using it as an example of something that's been incredibly nerfed over time, ever since they said it was contributing to lag and introduced the whole "off-hand as a %" rather than attack speed. TWF could take quite a while to build. Especially if you wanted it on certain MAD characters such as my Paladin. You'd be upset if PL were actually nerfed because it is part of the "legacy" of your character. Well so is TWF in my case. I had to plan quite hard to be able to pull it off correctly and I sacrificed quite a bit as well. And I then gathered gear and reset Feats as Turbine changed the way the Feats were automatically. Since TWF isn't junk, neither are PL. They've both just dropped in overall relevance.

But I can understand why you'd be even more upset about nerfs to PL, since they are not replaceable (they also don't take up a slot, but that's besides the point). But then what is Turbine to do about the difference in Spell Pen for instance? Do they just never make it an issue by never giving SR to opponents? Do they just give immunities instead? Or do they just admit that to be a viable caster in a quest with opponents with SR you just have to bite the bullet and do multiple TRs whether you like that aspect of the game or not?

And I know those aren't the only options. I know that casters have enough weapons in their arsenal to adapt, even if grudgingly. But even as you ask for your minor perks to have more relevance there are those who've been upset that their perks (DCs and Spell Pen) have been nerfed because Turbine rather than try to figure it out, just jacks the saves up so that it doesn't matter how many PL you have.

Anyway, I think we can agree that it sucks when things you've worked for have less relevance. For me it is TWF, for you it is PL. I think we both have to move on as the game moves on. It is part of the Meta-game. That some of your characters are now less than they were and that you feel you've wasted time; well join the club. This game will flip and flop. You may have to stop TRing. If you play it as much for the benefits as because you enjoy the early content, you may have to accept that it's no longer worth the benefits and then you'll have to see if it's worth it to even keep doing.

I think Turbine wants to move on. I doubt they want to bother revisiting TRs. I think they just figure they'll introduce an "Epic TR" and that will address the people who like to keep replaying and grinding for small gains.

Because once again, I don't think they can sustain a game where the main thing to do is to keep restarting a character. I honestly think they looked at the numbers and saw the attrition rate and as they saw drops in xp pots sales they realized it was time to finally provide end game content and abilities. Hence the big Expansion push we had. And I really think they meant it to obsolete the previous game. It's been their way for years now. I'vebeen playing since 2006, I think I have some point of reference.

However, I do see where you're coming from. And I do hope you can get something satisfactory from it. Just don't lobby too hard and make it something mandatory, because that'll p!ss me off;). If it was simply all about time then new players would never catch up. You can't attract new players that way. Other games don't have character classes of the same level that are that much more powerful in terms of abilities from each other. One player may be much better at it than another, but a 20th level Templar is pretty much the same as any other 20th Level Templar for instance. Now gear may of course make a large difference, but just the fact that ine has been playing more doesn't mean he'll have access to entire abilities that the other player won't have access to.

As far as the need for Vets at lower levels. I disagree that Vets are needed to show new players the ropes that much. New players can learn at their own pace. They can ask for advice. They can read the forums. And anyway, TRs may have become relatively less desirable, but there will be plenty of vets who want to just chill and take a break from end game. And those are the ones most likely to enjoy teaching new players. Not the TRs who want to get back to cap as soon as possible because they want to use there higher DCs and whatever special abilities on end game quests. The TRs who do it just for the sake of doing it are more likely to be in a relaxed state of mind than the ones who TR because they feel they need some ability at end game.

New players don't need that much interaction with TRs. If a new player cares enough, he will look about joining a guild. He will experiment. He will reroll and start alts to see what kind of characters play in what ways and which way he may prefer. In short, new players will do what we did when we learned this game.

But anyway, I do wish you luck in convincing the Devs that something should be done. I won't "support" any big change, especially what things like the OP wants since he just wants to have the content be easier for himself and those like him. But your points seem rather reasonable. I don't agree that PL needs a boost in the overall sense (heck I think some need nerfs, but I can understand why that would be upsetting), but some review would be nice for the ones everyone has considered junk. But no, I don't think that just because people have more HP, that the Barb PL need a buff. It is exactly as advertized. Nobody told you 30 HP was going to remain the same percentage forever.

HungarianRhapsody

03-04-2013, 09:19 PM

DDO is vastly more balanced than the D&D that it's based on. I'm actually impressed with the class balancing that Turbine does for the game. I think it could be better, but when you look at what they had to work with, it's quite a feat of design.

eonfreon

03-04-2013, 09:32 PM

With this, they actually started out with the handicap of having to convert a turn based table top game into a real time video game. They also seem to have either rushed things quite a bit or never really bothered to make long term plans with the game. They keep adding "neat" new things that just don't fit with what they already have (and in many cases don't seem to work well with the code they already have). When the game launched in 2006, it should have been easy for a dev to extrapolate what a level 25, 30 or even 100 character would be like simply by looking at the plan. The various crafting systems should all fit together neatly because they follow the plan, etc.

Yes, everything after a certain point has a rather "tacked-on" feel to it. Take PREs for example. People asked about them forever. If the Devs had any kind of plan they could have at least told us that they would be 3 tiers at 6, 12, 18, thus allowing us to plan according, especially since multi-classing is one of the draws of this game.

But it took them forever to roll out the first PREs, incomplete of course, and with little warning of tiers. So many people's builds just wouldn't allw them to fit in the PREs smoothly at all. Heck, I had to do three Feat exchanges with friend to turn my Ranger into a Tempest. How do you design a PRE with those kinds of prereqs when you know they're not even commonly taken Feats. Heck, the Feats were widely regarded as "junk" or pretty much sure put it in if nothing else at all is better. But the DEvs saw these Feats that were underwhelming like Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack and rather than fix it they made it a prereq for a PRE. A PRE that brought a lot of power to the Class at the time and became a "must-have" for many Rangers.

That's why I both have sympathy and not on the OP's subject. I know it sucks that Turbine basically can dictate long after the fact how relevant or irrelevant whatever you've done to your characters is, but I'm also very used to it right now. And I don't think TRing is something special and requires "preserving".

I have my own prejudices against it. I really think it's popularity allowed Turbine with getting away with not developing end game content for years.

But I'm just not mean-spirited enough to think all of their gameplay should just go "poof". Although if I had my way the whole TR system would be completely irrelevant. It did it's job now time to move on. But that's too extreme. It seems that really nothing needs to be done either way. Since the impact on end game can be kept to a minimum then it can be largely ignored by players who don't wish to re-play old content to advance their character's progression. TRing can be what it was "supposed" to be (IMO ofc); a nice diversion when you need a break from end game, able to play every now and again when the novelty of doing old stuff again catches your whim. Rather than the TR speed trains that is far more dominant today.

Heck once I get to level 25, I just may TR my main after awhile. Why not? It's been a long time since I was at Sorrowdusk.